If you go in thru Garden Web (rather than Houzz) you can pull up one from Shambo titled:

Great Bran Muffin Recipe. The recipe uses straight bran, rather than bran cereal. I would trust that her recipe is good.

No, you hit it on the head. Most of the recipes date from when you could mostly get bran from ”health food stores” and small mills, and from the former it wasn't always great quality. My go-to recipe is a version of one that was going around back then that uses both straight bran cereal and bran flakes. I think it started in a ”women's magazine”. It got to our family from friends of my parents.

There's a moisture problem with bran. Some people use applesauce. Some people soak the bran. Some people say not to soak or stir too much. I've tasted a lot of bran muffins that tasted like cardboard. I have not made these, but saved Carolb's recipe from this thread:

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5796518/low-fat-muffin-convert-here#n=6

This is the only recipe I have used for years. The photo is a page from a cookbook that I .made for my daughters. The word "sorry" in the title is because one of my daughters hates the words moist LOL! These muffins are pretty low fat but really tasty and moist.

Nekotish, that is a very unusual recipe, with boiling the first 5 ingredients. It sounds really good though. Thanks!

Thanks, Carol_b! THat recipe also sounds good. Marmalade sounds like a good inclusion. Very different. Is it done for the moisture, or flavor, I wonder. I have my own, homemade lemon marmalade I can use. One batch came out really sour. I like sour, but this might make a good inclusion.

You're welcome 😊

The marmalade was my idea, not from the original recipe. So was the grated apple.

I got this recipe from a safari lodge in Namibia where we had warm bran muffins every morning. They called them Scrubbers!

Healthy Bran Muffins aka Scrubbers
2 eggs
90ml oil
250ml brown sugar (1 cup)
500ml buttermilk
250ml digestive bran (1 cup)
125g seedless raisins
375ml cake flour (1 1/2 cups)
250ml whole wheat flour (1 cup)
2 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Beat eggs, oil, sugar and buttermilk together with an electric beater or wooden spoon. Add bran and raisins and mix together. Add dry ingredients.

Place in greased muffin tin. Bake at 180C/350F for 15 minutes.

Unbaked mixture can keep in fridge for at least a month.

Variations:
- Add mashed bananas
- Add chopped dates and pecans
- Top mixture with muesli
- Add seeds such as pumpkin, sunflower, etc.
- Add chopped apple and top with chopped apple and brown sugar
- Add chopped apricots

@linnea56 (zone 5b Chicago) It is an unusual method and I think it is that method that accounts for them being so moist without a lot of fat in the recipe.

You can add bran to just about any batter.

Bran, as it is, is not really something that has much flavor and it has more value as fiber than it does culinary value.

For many, many years I have been making what I call "toasted grains' that we use on cereals and that I use in baking any kind of muffins or breads and also waffle batters.

I use 1 part of both sunflower and sesame seeds, 3 parts of wheat germ, and 2 parts of bran.

Each of them is sepertely toasted in a hot iron skillet and then mixed in a big bowl and I keep a jar of this in the fridge as a stock item. When toasting each of these in the skillet, the bran is the one that takes a while to toast up.

I buy bran at the co op in bulk. It is inexpensive.

I love this mix of toasty goodness and will add some into so many things.

My go to waffle batter is a combo of whole wheat flour and a generous dose of toasted grains, and molasses and is very much just the same batter as would be a muffin, just baked in a waffle iron instead of an oven. It is the only way I would ever choose to have waffles. Any other waffle I can happily leave behind.

I also add it any cooked cereal . it does not have to be cooked, so add it at the end of the cooking.

This has been a kitchen staple for many, many years.

Yes, it seems that a box of bran based cereal was used because it was more readily available thatn was just real, ordinary bran. It is not expensive, but it can be when purchased in an average grocery store. I buy at the co op. The same with wheat germ. That little jar at the grocery store is way expensive, compared to other sources. My mix would require the entire jar of it!