{"id":2316,"date":"2016-03-08T07:00:44","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T07:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/betondinner.com\/?p=2316"},"modified":"2018-03-09T02:28:18","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T02:28:18","slug":"bran-muffins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/betondinner.com\/bran-muffins\/","title":{"rendered":"Bran Muffins."},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Healthy,<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"tender<\/a><\/p>\n

These bran muffins are one of my favorite breakfasts – slash morning snack, slash muffins all day, e’ryday<\/em>. They’re very tender, but they also have good chewy texture, and they’re pleasantly whole-grainy without being dense\/boring\/dry. The muffins themselves are lightly sweet, and the raisins add an extra little burst (oh, they’re optional, haters).\u00a0The fiber makes them hearty and filling, and they freeze well! Plus, there’s a secret ingredient!!<\/em><\/p>\n

My mom made these bran muffins when I was a growing up, and I started making them in college and keeping a stash in the freezer. Because what cool college kid doesn’t keep a supply of wheat bran around? Ahem. Once you have the ingredients, it’s a quick, uncomplicated recipe – I’ve made them so often I have it memorized! (Wow, ALL the cool points today.)<\/p>\n

\"unprocessed<\/a><\/p>\n

So: you need unprocessed wheat bran. You can buy it from the bulk bins at a health food store like Whole Foods, and a regular grocery store will often have a packaged kind (I’ve used Hodgson Mill and Bob’s Red Mill before). Wheat bran adds a nice fiber boost \u00a0(each muffin has nearly 5 grams of fiber), and is super nutritious, too!<\/p>\n

\"mixing<\/a><\/p>\n

The bran cereal (aka, the little twigs in the picture above) adds the best chewiness to an otherwise tender muffin! I like to use a big measuring cup to measure the buttermilk and oil, and then whisk the eggs into the liquid before adding it all to the dry ingredients.<\/p>\n

As for the secret ingredient – it’s orange juice! I discovered it completely by accident a few years ago – I was making a buttermilk substitute with lemon juice, buuut I didn’t have any lemon juice. I had orange juice, though, so I figured what the heck, and used that instead. And the muffins came out noticeably better than usual! I felt a little silly and superstitious, but started making them that way. THEN I was browsing through\u00a0my\u00a0King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking<\/a><\/span>\"\"\u00a0cookbook and discovered that they use orange juice in some of their whole wheat recipes, because something in the flavor of orange juice tames something in wheat to make it less assertively wheaty. So it’s, like, science! See the recipe notes for info on including a secret OJ shot to make your muffins extra awesome!<\/p>\n

\"scooping<\/a><\/p>\n

The bran muffins bake for a quick 15-20 minutes, and I love how they get those lovely, lightly browned, craggy domes. They’re perfectly good on their own, and would make a great balanced breakfast with an egg and some fruit…but I personally like to eat them two at a time. With butter.<\/p>\n

\"bran<\/a><\/p>\nPrint<\/a>

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