My mother used to make very good bran muffins, but the recipe died with her. All I’m sure of is that it involved bran cereal (it was in sort of wormy looking strands) and the ordinary stuff you’d expect: flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder and so forth. Sometimes plain, sometimes she’d add raisins or dates.
I’ve gone to various recipe websites and tried three different recipes so far, and they’ve been from bad (flat dense pucks that barely rose) to horrible (they rose and then fell! yes, concave muffins with a rim of burned on residue around each pocket.)
Really, I followed the recipes exactly, I’m a decent cook in general, and I happened to be using a tin of baking powder I just bought a month ago, so I don’t think it’s my ‘fault.’
Anyway, I trust Doper’s to have generally better standards than usual.
Aunt Jan’s Bran Muffins
Makes about 36 standard-size muffins
1 C boiling water
1 C Post 100% Bran (this is the little noodly bran cereal)
1 ¼ C sugar
½ C shortening (okay, the recipe says “Crisco, not butter” but I have mostly stopped using shortening and will use butter the next time I make these)
2 eggs
2 ½ C flour
2 ½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
2 C buttermilk
2 C Kelloggs All-Bran Buds
Combine boiling water and 100% Bran Cereal. Let cool and set aside.
Cream together sugar and shortening/butter, then add eggs one at a time. Add buttermilk.
In a separate bowl, whisk or sift flour, baking soda, and salt together.
Add flour mixture, All-Bran cereal, and cooled 100% Bran mixture to egg mixture and stir to combine. Batter may be stored, covered in refrigerator for 2 weeks. Do not stir batter when taking some out. Pour batter into a muffin tin that has been greased or lined with papers. Bake at 375° for 18-22 minutes.
NOTE: I have had some trouble finding one of the bran cereals lately (I can’t remember which one). Just get one that is little wiggly bran sticks and one that is bran buds, and make sure they’re both plain and not flavored. It’ll be fine.
Also, I will probably try adding some vanilla the next time I make these, just for kicks.
These muffins freeze really well, too, and it seems to me that they are easily customizable. You want raisins in there? Add 'em. Nuts? Go for it. I like these cooked plain, but I toast them up and let honey soak in… yum!
What is the deal with storing muffin batter? Whenever I have made muffins I had to bake them almost immediately after adding the liquid to the flour mix so that they would rise properly. How do you prevent the action of the baking soda from diminishing when stored?
