Let’s bring the healthy bake series to a temporary end with some wholesome wheat bran muffins. I’ve really enjoyed making the last dozen or so videos using rye, spelt, einkorn, and various other flours. It was a welcome change to the usual.
Today I opened my flour cupboard and saw the bag of wheat bran that I had bought for one of the first rye bread recipes in the series. Now was as good of a time as ever to use it.
Bran is the outer casing of the wheat berry. It is extracted by grinding the grain and then sifting out all the finer flour particles leaving the bran behind. Each part of the grain contains health promoting nutrients. The bran is rich is fibre, b-vitamins, zinc, iron, copper, magnesium, antioxidants, and phytochemicals.
To flavour the muffins I chose spinach, feta cheese, and cherry tomatoes. You can use any fillings you like as long as you use and equivalent combined mass, and as long as they are not too wet.
If you don’t want to buy wheat bran separately you can use whole wheat flour instead of the bran and all-purpose flour given in the recipe. Use an equal combined weight of whole wheat flour. You will need to adjust the method slightly as I explain in the video.
This recipe makes 12 small muffins. The cases I used are 6cm (2.5in) across and 4cm (1.5in) deep.
You could use a mix of baking powder and baking soda for a slightly better rise. 2:1 (8g + 4g) ratio should be sufficient. The soda will react with the buttermilk and make the batter rise instantaneously while the baking powder will activate more when it gets up to temperature in the oven giving you a double action rise. I did not have any soda at home on the day of baking, so I stuck with just the baking powder which did a good job regardless.
Watch the video down below for detailed instructions.
Ingredients
For the batter –
100g (3.5oz) wheat bran
380g (13.4oz) buttermilk or yogurt
120g (4.25oz) all-purpose flour
12g (0.42oz) baking powder
3g (0.1oz) salt
60g (2.1oz) butter
1 egg (50g; 1.75oz)
30g (1oz) honey
Fillings –
120g (4.25oz) diced feta cheese
100g (3.5oz) raw spinach
160g (5.65oz) fresh cherry tomatoes
Method
- Mix the bran and buttermilk. Cover and leave on the side.
- Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix. Crumble in the butter. Leave on the side.
- Cook the tomatoes. Place the cut tomatoes on a non-stick paper lined baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with oregano and black pepper. Bake for 12 minutes a 220C (430F) until darkened and a little dehydrated. Leave to cool down.
- Cook the spinach. Bring a pot of water up to a boil. Drop the spinach in the boiling water and submerge it. A few seconds later cool the spinach down rapidly. Squeeze out as much water as possible and chop the spinach into smaller pieces.
- Mix the batter. Add the egg and the honey to the barn and buttermilk. Mix. Add the dry ingredients and mix again. Finally, add the fillings and fold through.
- Distribute the batter evenly between 12 muffin cases. Smooth out the surface and sprinkle with wheat bran.
- Bake for 25 minutes at 170C (340F) fan on.
Leve to cool down and enjoy!
Watch The Video Here
