21 | February | 2014 | Bewitching Kitchen

I would love to take full credit for coming up with the title of this post, but I can’t. “A Bran Muffin Stole My Heart” was the title of a blog post by Michelle published almost 3 years ago, and brought to my attention by a friend over on Facebook (thank you, Tracy!). After reading Michelle’s post, I had the intuition that this recipe would be a winner. For starters, it makes big, very big muffins. Then, it proceeds by crowning each muffin with a tempting sprinkle of walnuts and sugar, that gets irresistibly crunchy as they bake. I had to make a batch and put it to the test of my resident bran muffin critic-extraordinaire… 😉

APPLE-RAISIN BRAN MUFFINS
(slightly modified from Put in Some Sugar)

1 + 1/4 cups whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 + 1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup wheat bran
1/4 cup chopped dried apple
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup cranberries
1/4 cup diced walnuts
1/2 cup boiling water
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 large egg
1 cup buttermilk
Raw sugar, for sprinkling
walnut pieces, for sprinkling

Heat your oven to 400 F. Prepare a muffin pan, with either paper cups or spray.
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In a small bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In another small bowl, combine the wheat bran and dried fruits. Add the boiling water and let sit.
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In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until fluffy, then add the sugar and beat until well combined and creamy. Add the honey and mix. Add the egg, mixing well.

Mix in the buttermilk and flour mixture in three additions each, beating each addition until just combined. Stop the mixer and scrape the bowl. Mix in the bran mixture.
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Scoop the batter into the muffin cups. It should take about 1/2 cup of batter for each muffin if you are using a jumbo muffin pan. For regular muffin pans, use 1/4 cup. Top each muffin with a teaspoon of raw sugar and sprinkle with a teaspoon of chopped walnuts.
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Bake 20 minutes or until browned on top and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

These muffins are the ones that got the closest to those from Phil’s past. I have no doubt that the larger size helped a lot, so getting the jumbo size muffin pan was a great move by Sally.

The topping adds a lot to these muffins, but I loved everything about them, from taste to texture. What can I say? I think I’ve been assimilated.