Ultimate Bran Muffins

Ultimate Bran Muffins. This recipe has just the right texture, flavour and moistness without being too oily. A perfect breakfast muffin.

Ultimate Bran Muffins

Rock Recipes is now in its 13th year and in all that time I have never posted a standard recipe for bran muffins. Why is that?

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve baked them before and sampled dozens at different bakeries over the years as well. Though many of them were quite good, every recipe seemed to fall short on at least one point.

Core ingredients.

Maybe I’m too picky, but the majority of them fell short of flavour for me. Some were very bland indeed.

The best bakery bran muffins I’ve tasted always had that lingering slight background flavour of molasses. I think that element is essential.

All Bran or crushed bran flakes are good choices in these muffins.

However, with flavours as strong as molasses, some recipes actually went overboard with too much. That is also a no-no in my book.

Texture is also important. Because of the rustic nature of the bran, dense, dry muffins can sometimes result. The bran does suck up moisture, making it difficult to balance the moistness of the muffins.

Ultimate Bran Muffins

Too much oil is the biggest offender in bran muffin recipes.

The biggest offence I’ve found in bakery versions is that they often contain too much oil. This is obviously an attempt to keep in moistness, but often recipes go overboard with the amount of this ingredient as well.

Adding in the soaked bran

Sometimes the tops of the  muffins begin to look a bit glossy after a few hours. It is as if the oil starts to leech to the surface, and I find it a bit off-putting.

The oil also does not bring any flavour to the recipe like butter would. So, here I have balanced the two.

Ultimate Bran Muffins, ready for the oven

My solution was to cut back on the total fat and split it evenly between oil and melted butter. It worked like a charm.

I set out to create my own version, a Franken-muffin, if you will. A recipe which cobbles together the best elements of several recipes plus a few tweaks of my own thrown in.

Ultimate Bran Muffins just out of the oven.

The result was a muffin that’s denser and more substantial than a cupcake, but light enough to maintain a moist, tender crumb structure.

Ultimate Bran Muffins cooling on a wire rack

Ultimate Bran Muffins. The reviews are in.

Again I shared the results of my experiments with friends and family, and they immediately started asking for the recipe. They particularly agreed with me on the molasses element. I love being right 🙂

Give them a try this week or on the weekend and see what you think of these. I don’t think you will be disappointed.

Love a great muffin recipe? We’ve put together a collection of our Top 25 Fan Favourite Muffin Recipes. You may be surprised to see which delicious, wholesome muffin hit the #1 spot!

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Yield: 12 muffins

Ultimate Bran Muffins

Ultimate Bran Muffins. This recipe has just the right texture, flavour and moistness without being too oily. A perfect breakfast muffin.

Print

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups Bran cereal (All bran or crushed bran flakes to make 1 1/2 cups)
• 1 2/3 cups milk
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 3 tsp b aking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup canola oil (or other vegetable oil)
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cup raisins (optional)(plus extra to garnish tops before baking if you like)

Instructions

1. Begin by soaking the bran cereal in the milk for 10-15 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a 12 muffin pan generously, including the top of the pan. If using paper muffin liners, it's still a good idea to grease the top of the pan to prevent sticking.
3. To a large bowl add the brown sugar, molasses, oil, melted butter and eggs. Whisk together until well blended.
4. Stir in the bran and milk mixture.
5. Fold in the dry ingredients until the batter is smooth. 
6. If you are using them, add the raisins during the last few turns of folding in the flour.
7. Spoon the batter  evenly into prepared muffin pan. 
8. Bake for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees F or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the centre of the muffins comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes in the pan before transferring the muffins to a wire rack to cool.

Notes

 

 

Nutrition Information

Yield

12

Serving Size

1 muffin
Amount Per Serving Calories 297Total Fat 12gSaturated Fat 4gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 8gCholesterol 44mgSodium 184mgCarbohydrates 45gFiber 3gSugar 21gProtein 6g

The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.

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