A few weeks ago one of our local Op shops had a table full of free books out the front.  I grabbed a copy of The best of Alison Holst and as I was having a look through it, I saw a recipe for Bran Muffins.  I LOVE Bran muffins, they are my all time favourite.  I grabbed some other baking cook books I had on my shelf to see if I could find any other bran muffin recipes and found 2 more.  I have made all three recipes for comparison with a couple of tweeks based on what I had in the cupboard.

Recipe 1 – Bran Muffins from The Best of Alison Holst (with a couple of tweeks), makes about 12 

• 2 cups wheat bran
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup golden syrup or treacle (I used Black strap molasses as I had some to use up)
• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk (I used Oat milk as I didn’t have enough milk)

Put the bran into a large mixing bowl and sift in the flour, baking soda and baking powder.  Stir together.  Warm the golden syrup until runny then remove from heat and add egg and milk and mix well until combined.  Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients and mix until the dry ingredients are barely damp.  Don’t overmix or your muffins will be tough.

Spoon the mixture into well greased muffin pan and bake at 200°C for 10 – 15 mins or until firm in the middle.  Stand for several minutes before removing from pans.

Verdict – these were delicious!  I managed to get 11 muffins out of the mix.  The molasses made them dark and moist and caramel tasting.  Big tick, will make these again with Golden Syrup to see how they turn out.

Recipe 2 – Bran Muffins from Edmonds Cookbook

• 1 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups baking bran
• 1 tbsp golden syrup
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup milk (I used Oat milk)
• 1 egg

Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.  Mix in sugar and bran.  Melt golden syrup and butter together.  Dissolve soda in milk.  Add these with the egg to the dry ingredients.  Mix quickly, just enough to combine.  Spoon into cold greased muffin tins.  Bake at 220ºC for 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Verdict – these were also delicious but much drier than the Alison Holst ones.  They were also a lot lighter in colour as not as much golden syrup and I didn’t use molasses in these.  Will make these again though as we took some on our bike ride as a snack and they stood up really well in our packs.

Recipe 3 – Bran Muffins from A Good Baking Day (recipe from Jean Hamilton, Gore)

• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup golden syrup (I used 1/2 cup black strap molasses and 1/2 cup golden syrup)
• 2 cups bran
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup sultanas (optional but I added these)

Preheat oven to 180ºC.  Grease muffin tins.  Heat milk and syrup until warm (it curdles if too hot) then add bran, sifted dry ingredients and sultanas if using.  Mix until just combined.  Place in muffin tins and cook for 20 – 30 minutes (mine were done in 20 mins) or until springy to the touch.

Verdict – these were my favourite out of the 3.  The molasses made them dark and caramelly and they were nice and moist.  I ate mine hot, pretty much straight out of the oven tonight so I will have to wait for them to cool down to do a fair comparison.