Last week my local café had bran muffins in their food cabinet. I was delighted to see they are back in vogue. Well if not, they should be!
There has also been some chat lately about a real preference for smaller café food, highlighting in particular the size of some of the muffins that are available. These muffins fit both the size and taste bill, according to my test kitchen tasters.
The mixture makes more than a dozen so if you can only fit one tray at a time in your oven that is fine as the mixture will hold for 20 minutes. Once the first tray has cooked, remove muffins and repeat with remaining mixture.
Ingredients
| 15 g | Butter |
| ½ cup | Runny honey |
| 1 ½ cups | Plain flour |
| 1 tsp | Baking powder |
| 1 tsp | Ground cinnamon |
| 1 ½ cups | Oat bran (Main) |
| ½ cup | Soft brown sugar |
| 2 | Bananas (Main) |
| 1 | Apple, grated (leave skin on apple if it grates easily) (Main) |
| 1 punnet | Blueberries, (250g) (Main) |
| 1 tsp | Baking soda |
| 1 cup | Milk, warmed |
| 1 | Egg, lightly beaten |
Directions
- Heat the oven to 190C. Line a 12-hole muffin tray with paper cases. Have a further 6 paper cases ready.
- Place the butter and honey in a small saucepan and melt together over low heat. Remove from the heat and set aside.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a large bowl. Add the oat bran and brown sugar and stir to combine.
- Roughly mash the bananas on a large plate using a fork. Add the grated apple and sprinkle over the blueberries. Mix gently to roughly combine. Add to the flour mixture.
- Stir the baking soda into the warm milk, then pour into the flour and fruit mixture along with the egg, melted butter and honey. Fold together until just combined.
- Spoon mixture into prepared muffin tray, three-quarters filling each paper case. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until the muffins are well browned and springy to the touch. Remove from the oven and transfer muffins to a wire rack.
- Repeat with remaining mixture.
Tip -Gently fold dry and wet mixtures together until just combined so you don't end up with your muffins peaking in the middle. Be careful, the mixture will be wet and sloppy and will easily slip off the spoon when filling the paper cases.
See Kathy's simple dinner recipes