Old-Fashioned Bran Muffins

A close up of a bran muffin on a cooling rack with the paper case removed, more muffins with brown paper cases in background.

Course: Afternoon tea, Breakfast, Brunch, pack-lunch, picnic, Snack, Supper

Cuisine: American, Australian

Prep Time: 20

Cook Time: 18

Total Time: 38

Servings: muffins

Calories: 228kcal

Author: Jacq

These Old-Fashioned Bran Muffins are egg, dairy, and butter-free, and are deliciously soft, fluffy, sweet, homely, and high in fibre as they are packed with wholesome bran and sweet dates [although the dates can be substituted].

Perfect for a quick breakfast, brunch, supper, or any-time-of-the-day snack. Split a warm just-baked muffin in two and spread with some diary-free butter, fruit jam, peanut butter, or your favourite condiment.

Print Recipe

US Customary - Metric

Equipment

12 cup muffin baking tin
12 muffin paper baking cups optional, as can grease each muffin cup with oil or margarine if preferred
Jug or small bowl
sieve
Mixing bowl
mixing spoon

Ingredients

Vegan buttermilk:

360 mililitres plant-based milk [such as oat or soya or your usual milk]
2 teaspoons white distilled vinegar [or apple cider vinegar]

Muffins:

195 grams self-raising flour [or use plain [all-purpose flour] and increase the baking powder to 2 teaspoons, and add ½ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, and an extra few pinches of salt]
1 teaspoon baking powder
⅛ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon powder [or any spice/spice mix you prefer]
75 grams soft brown sugar [light brown sugar]
140 grams fine bran [ground] [or oat bran]
105 millilitres vegetable oil [any vegetable oil is fine]
60 grams apple sauce [can be home-made or shop-bought from a jar, use a smoothish apple sauce]
125 grams dates [stones removed [if any] and chopped into small pieces] [dates can be replaced with chocolate chips or morsels see recipe notes].

Instructions

Prepare the buttermilk:

Add your choice of milk to a jug and stir through the vinegar. Leave for at least 10 minutes, or for however long it takes for you to prepare the muffins.
360 mililitres plant-based milk, 2 teaspoons white distilled vinegar

Prepare the muffins:

Preheat the oven to 200 Fan, 220C, 428 Fahrenheit, Gas 7.
If using paper cases, pop one case into each muffin cup in the baking tray. Alternatively use a little margarine or a spray oil to grease each muffin cup and don't use any paper cases.
Chop the dates into small pieces, and remove any pits if necessary.
Sift the flour, cinnamon, and baking powder into a mixing bowl.
195 grams self-raising flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 2 teaspoons cinnamon powder
Stir through the sugar, bran, salt, and chopped dates.
⅛ teaspoon salt, 75 grams soft brown sugar, 140 grams fine bran, 125 grams dates
Add the oil and apple sauce to the jug with the buttermilk, and stir well.
105 millilitres vegetable oil, 60 grams apple sauce
Make a little well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour the liquid mixture into the flour mixture.
Stir everything together, with a mixing spoon, until only just combined as its important not to over-mix muffin batter as then the muffins can become tough.
Divide the muffin batter between each of the 12 muffin cases.
Bake on the middle oven shelf for 15-18 minutes or until a skewer popped into a muffin comes out clean, and the muffins have risen, are firm to touch, and are tinged with golden brown bits.
We used an electric oven and the muffins were ready at 18 minutes baked at 220C. If using a fan oven check the muffins a few minutes earlier as fan ovens can bake quicker.
Leave the muffins for a couple of minutes in the muffin pan, before removing and cooling on a wire rack or similar.
Bran muffins can be enjoyed warm soon after they are out of the oven. Split one in half and enjoy with a little margarine or butter spread over so that it melts, so delicious!

Notes

We strongly recommend using a kitchen scale and measuring the ingredients using the grams measurements, as this ensures the best baking outcomes.
However, for the cup measurements - the cup measurer equaled 240ml, and the ingredients are not sifted before measuring nor are they packed into the cups. With the exception of the brown sugar which is gently patted into the half cup measurer.
Nutritional data is provided for guidance only and is not intended to be an exact calculation as ingredients vary.
We used 'fine bran' for this recipe which was sourced from our local health food shop [wholefood store], although any type of ground or milled bran is fine to use, including oat bran if preferred.
Rapeseed oil was used.
The dried dates we used were bought from Home Bargains [UK].
Oat milk was used to prepare the vegan buttermilk.
Self-raising flour is the same as self-rising flour, and it can be replaced with plain or all-purpose flour but add an additional 1 teaspoon of baking powder [so use 2 teaspoons baking powder in total] ½ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda [baking soda], and an extra pinch of salt, to the recipe.
Some types of paper baking cases can stick a little to the muffins and this can be more noticeable if removing the case soon after baking, so if preferred use a non-stick muffin baking tray and with some margarine or butter lightly grease each muffin cup and then the baking cases can be omitted.
For breakfast, my family likes peanut butter and plant-based chocolate spread with their bran muffins, either the ones prepared with dates or chocolate chips. The fiber in the muffins does keep us full for much longer compared to a bowl of cereal!
Variation: Chocolate chip bran muffins
Instead of chopped up dates use chocolate chips or morsels [about 100g/3 ½ oz, or a little more] or a chocolate bar broken into small pieces. Also add about 2 teaspoons of vanilla essence or extract, and follow the recipe above. For our chocolate bran muffins we used a bar of 60% dark chocolate that was sourced from Lidl [UK].
Replacing the dates with 100g dark chocolate changes the nutritional data to an estimated: 248Calories, 11g sugar, 13g fat, 33g carbs, iron 3mg, 5g protein and the fiber remains the same at 7g, per muffin.
Chocolate chip bran muffins are also delicious, sliced in half, and spread with vegan butter, peanut butter, plant-based chocolate spread etc, especially for breakfast.

Nutrition