I love bran muffins and these are my favourites. The recipe is from my cousin, Kathi. On occasion I substitute the raisins with 1 ¼ cups of fresh or frozen blueberries. The muffins freeze really well and if you like, you can make the batter the day before, then bake in the morning. You can use muffin liners for your pans or spray with non-stick cooking spray.
Makes 18 Muffins
Preheat the oven to 400 F
3 cups natural bran
1 cup boiling water
Combine bran and water in a large bowl, stir to moisten & let stand 15 minutes while you prepare the remaining ingredients for the muffins.
2 eggs
½ cup canola oil
½ cup molasses
2 cups buttermilk
¾ cup brown sugar
¼ cup wheat germ
2 cups unbleached flour
½ cup wholewheat flour
½ tsp. salt
2 ½ tsp. baking soda
1 cup raisins
Prepare muffins pans using muffin cups., or spraying with non-stick cooking spray. I highly recommend using the baking parchment ones. When removing the baked muffins from the baking cups nothing of the muffin is left stuck to the muffin cup.
Combine flour, salt and soda, set aside. Add raisins.
To the bran mixture add the oil, molasses, eggs, wheat germ, brown sugar and buttermilk. Stir to combine well. Add dry ingredients and fold together. Add raisins and If using blueberries fold them in now. Place the batter in muffin pans and bake for 15 – 25 minutes, checking after 20 minutes. Insert a wooden pick into the center of a muffin, if it comes out clean, they are ready. Remove to a cooling rack, after 10 minutes remove to finish cooling on the rack.
A tip: you can use an ice cream scoop to put the batter into the muffins cups, works great!
