Muffins: Triple Berry Bran

Are you a bran fan?

Even though I was the pickiest kid alive, I’ve always like bran. To this day I still love a bowl of bran flakes (cereal) with raisins, I eat Cracklin’ Oat Bran out of the box as a snack and of course I enjoy the occasional bran muffin.

These muffins were inspired by a road trip. When our kids were little, every summer my bff Nichole and I would pack them up and take them to the west side of the mitten for a mini vacation. One particular time we were on our way back to our hotel after going to Michigan Adventures (a kid-friendly amusement park) and we completely got lost and wound up at some farm. We stopped to collect ourselves and purchased a pint of strawberries and the go-to strawberry bran muffins I’ve ever tasted. Okay, so the only strawberry bran muffins I’ve ever tasted, but still they were GOOD.

Now these aren’t strawberry because the strawberries at my grocery store were looking more white than a deep red and thought I’d only save the strawberry bran recipe for another time. However the organic berries looked standout, so triple-berry is what you get. I hope you don’t mind.

To Make These Triple Berry Bran Muffins You’ll Need:

• wheat bran
• buttermilk
• whole wheat flour
• baking soda
• baking powder
• kosher salt
• brown sugar
• honey
• applesauce
• egg
• vanilla extract
• raspberries, blackberries and blueberries

Feel free to mix it up with strawberries or all blueberries. If making an all blueberry muffin, you’ll need about 1-1/2 cups of blueberries.

Add the 1-1/2 cups of wheat bran (I’m using Bob’s Red Mill) into a medium bowl.

Pour in 1 cup of buttermilk.

Stir until the bran has absorbed all of the buttermilk. Set that off to the side for a moment to get the rest of the muffin ingredients prepped.

Place 1 cup whole wheat flour into a bowl and in 1-1/2 teaspoons of both the baking soda and baking powder plus 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt.

In a separate bowl place, gently toss 1 cup blueberries, 3/4 cup both raspberries and blackberries with 1 tablespoon of all-purpose flour together, then set them off to the side.

Add 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce, 1 egg, 1/3 cup of both honey and dark brown sugar plus a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract to the bowl with the bran and buttermilk.

Stir until combined.

Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry and stir until only combined.

Add in the berries.

Gently fold them in with a spatula.

The batter is light and fluffy making this job especially straightforward.

Divide the batter by spooning into a well greased standard 12-cup muffin tin.

Slide the pan into your preheated 325° oven and bake for 22 to 24 minutes on the middle rack. Like most muffins I make, I like to sprinkle the top of each muffin with a little raw (turbinado) sugar before baking. It will give a nice sweet and crisp top to the muffins, but it’s entirely optional.

These muffins are done when you insert a toothpick and it comes back clean but with maybe a few crumbs attached.

Allow the muffins to cool in the pan for 20 minutes before running a thin spatula around the edges. Gently lift these out of the muffin pan and place onto a cooling rack.

These are truly good still warm from the oven.

And they’re TRULY good the next day with a cup of tea or coffee or orange juice.

They’re so extremely moist that they don’t need butter- although that’s not a terrible idea, of course.

Dependable sweetness. Dependable wholesomeness. These fiber-packed bran muffins will keep you full and satisfied.

Enjoy! And if you give this Triple Berry Bran Muffins recipe a try, let me know! Snap a photo and tag me on twitter or instagram!