Nutty Vanilla Muffins

This is life, one day it is about death and the other about muffins - the bizarre absurdities of reality. Once I was the queen of muffins and before one could decide what kind they wanted, I already had them done. Never the same and often adventurous, my best sweet muffins were triple chocolate muffins with fresh raspberries, I made them for a picnic in the park while enjoying the Glendale Orchestra and champagne. On the savory spectrum the yummiest is probably the bacon/blue cheese muffin. My children have a new favorite though and I had to make them a few times now: Nutty Vanilla Muffins. Here is the recipe for 24, because I bought this wonderful professional heavy duty muffin pan at the Williams Sonoma outlet.

Mix 2.5 cups of milk, 3 eggs and 1 stick of melted butter and add to a mix of 2 cups whole white wheat flour, 2 cups all purpose flour, 1 cup ground almond, 1/2 cup ground flax seeds, 1 1/2 cups whole hazelnuts, 2 Tbsp baking powder, a good dash of salt, the vanilla of one vanilla bean and 1/2 cup of homemade vanilla sugar*. Don't overmix, fill into (unbleached) muffin papers, about 3/4 full and bake at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes. They are perfect with a vanilla infused black tea, really!

* I have a jar filled with fine sugar and whenever I scrape vanilla out of a vanilla bean, I put the sticks into the sugar and every now and then I fill up the sugar again. I keep this going for years and it makes amazing vanilla sugar. Vanilla extract works well too, but it needs to be mixed with the liquids. Any form of vanilla works, as long as it is real vanilla and not some artificial flavor.