Heart-Healthy Bran Muffins – No oil, no butter, and whole grain!

With all of my, let’s call it decadent baking, I decided to make some healthier bran muffins. They tasted great!

Good enough that I’ll share the recipe with you! I altered the recipe from All Recipes a little bit to make it a little healthier. Unfortunately, I didn’t cut out any sugar, but I did cut out the oil. I also replaced some all-purpose flour with whole-wheat.

Enough talk, here it is!

Heart Healthy Bran Muffins

 Adapted from AllRecipes.com

Yield:  12 regular-sized muffins

Ingredients 1 ½ cups wheat bran 1 cup buttermilk 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce 1 egg 2/3 cup brown sugar ½ tsp vanilla extract ½ cup all-purpose flour ½ cup whole wheat flour 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp baking powder ½ tsp ground cinnamon ½ tsp kosher salt ½ cup dried fruit of your choice, chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
2. Mix together wheat bran and buttermilk, let stand for 10 minutes.
3. Beat together applesauce, egg, sugar and vanilla and add to buttermilk/bran mixture.
4. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Stir flour mixture into buttermilk mixture, until just blended. Fold in dried fruit and spoon batter into prepared muffin tins, filling to about ¾ full.
5. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let cool on a wire rack.

For my muffins I didn’t want to use raisins, they aren’t my hub’s favorite. Instead I had a bag of no sugar added mixed dried fruit from Costco; this included apricots, prunes, apples, and peaches. I gave those a rough chop and used them.

First – remember to soak your bran in the buttermilk. This takes 10 minutes so you can prepare everything else while this soaks. Here’s the bran.

Then you can add everything else!

Don’t overmix! These will be tough if you do. Fill up the muffin pan about yay high.

I sprinkled some brown sugar on top of each muffin. They bake up nicely and the brown sugar forms a little crust on top.

Mmm, enjoy for breakfast with an espresso!

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