One of my favorite treats that my grandmother used to make us when we went over to her house to play were her bran muffins. She liked to serve them warm and must have always timed it so they would come out of the oven right as we arrived. I will never forget the heavenly smell of freshly baked bread that would hit you the moment you opened her front door.
I know what you must be thinking_ What kind of kid looks forward to bran muffins? Aren’t bran muffins kind of boring and not very kid friendly? Some bran muffins certainly do reside in the “blah” category, but my grandmother’s were sweet and had an almost nutty quality about them.
Sadly, I don’t have my grandmother’s recipe, but I still wanted to recreate that food memory from my childhood. I played around a bunch until I came up with this version, which I think is pretty close to my grandmother’s. To give my muffins a little extra zing, I added one of my kids’ favorite dried fruits, cranberries, for both color and taste.
When I bake these, the smell in my kitchen takes me back to when I was kid and the taste is just as delicious as my memories. This recipe will make you think twice about ever calling bran muffins boring again — they are anything but!
Cranberry Bran Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 Cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 Cup whole wheat flour
- 1/2 Cup Wheat Bran
- 1 Tsp baking powder
- 1/2 Tsp baking soda
- 1/2 Tsp kosher salt
- 1 1/2 Cups buttermilk
- 1 Tsp vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 Cup honey
- 1/4 Cup oil
- 1 Cup dried cranberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350° F.
- Combine the first 6 ingredients in a bowl.
- In a separate bowl, whisk the remaining ingredients except for the cranberries.
- Slowly combine the dry ingredients into the wet, and then stir in the cranberries.
- Pour batter into greased mini muffin cups about 2/3 of the way up and bake for 15 minutes (or 2/3 of the way up into regular size muffin cups and bake for 20 minutes).
- Cool and serve.
