Honey Bran Muffins

I have done it!  I recreated the taste of Mimi's Cafe's Honey bran muffins... and they are delicious.

I was thinking the other day that I do not have a whole lot of fiber in my diet.  Knowing the bran is amazingly good for you, I wanted to find a better way to eat it than Raisin Bran (which is gross because I don't like raisins).

Thus the search began for a recipe that would allow me to make delicious bran muffins.  I used to regularly order honey bran muffins at Mimi's... so I figured I would start with that.  There was a post on a forum about Mimi's bran muffins.  I was disappointed that they did not call for honey, but for dark corn syrup.  I decided to tweak the recipe a little since it also called for raisins pureed with water, which doesn't work because:

1) I don't like raisins, and

2) I don't have a blender of any kind in my apartment.

Please note that despite my looking for something "healthy," I must admit that these are basically like candy on the outside.  So other than the bran being good for me, the sugar and fat content is probably rather high. 

Honey Bran Muffins 

dry ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup wheat bran
• 4 tsp dry milk powder
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt

"liquid" ingredients:

• 1/3 cup brown sugar (it called for dark, but all I had was light)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 Tbsp molasses
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 Tbsp grated orange zest (the orange flavor is a little overpowering, I'd probably reduce this to 1 Tablespoon or maybe even 2 teaspoons) 

Glaze:

• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 3 Tbsp brown sugar, packed
• 3 Tbsp butter (very soft or slightly melted - I put this whole mixture on top of the fridge while I did the rest and it worked really well)
• 2 Tbsp honey
• 2 tsp water

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Distribute about 1 Tbsp of the Glaze into each of your 12 muffin tins and be sure to coat the bottom and sides of each muffin tin. (I did this just before I mixed the wet and dry ingredients so that the glaze was fairly liquid, and I just spread it evenly between all 12 tins rather than measure)

In a medium bowl (or one with a pour spout) mix all the dry ingredients.

In a separate bowl (I didn't do this I just put all the wet ingredients into the middle of the dry ingredients and mixed them all together), mix the "liquid" ingredients.  Stir the liquids into the dry ingredients until just moistened.

Fill muffin tins 2/3 full, bake at 350 for 20min, until a toothpick comes out clean (be sure not to fill the muffins too full because even at 2/3rds they spring up over the tops a little.

Immediately invert the baked muffins onto foil or wax paper to cool.

I put mine on wax paper, and then enjoyed eating the carmelized rings on the muffin tin - if you make them, you'll know what I'm talking about.

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Do you find yourself typing "brain" when you mean to type bran?  I certainly do.

Bran is the hard outer layer of a grain.  Wheat bran can usually be found in the supermarket; and though I have not really looked for them yet, oat and rice bran are also available (rice bran is used in several Japanese recipes). Bran can be milled from any grain: rice, corn, wheat, oats, barley and millet (rice bran comes from the layer that is removed when brown rice becomes white rice).

Apparently, wheat and barley bran do contain gluten (sorry to all of you with celiac disease/sprue). However, rice and corn bran do not contain gluten, and oat bran is somewhere in between.  If you have a mild gluten-intolerance, you might try that.

Bran is REALLY good for you.  Not only does it contain a great amount of dietary fiber, but also essential fatty acids, starch, protein, vitamins and minerals!  Also, it's very filling.

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