My fruit and nut bran muffins are a lighter, fluffier take on the classic fiber rich muffins from the 70s. Customize them with your favorite dried fruits and crunchy nuts of choice.
Remember the plump, jewel toned dried fruit I found at our farmer’s market a few weeks ago? The Summer Fruit Granola I made with it was the best ever, so I made sure to get more of it. This time it’s sweetening up my basic buttermilk bran muffins.
Ever since I tasted premium dried fruit I can’t imagine going back to dusty old raisins in my muffins. Even if you can’t find fresh dried fruit at one of the stands at your farmer’s market, look for it your local stores. They are coming out with more varieties and better quality these days. Look for plump juicy fruit, Trader Joe’s has a pretty good selection. This mix has peaches, both yellow and white, nectarines, plums and pluots of all colors, apricots, and really fat raisins, both purple and green.
I use a mix of oat and wheat bran in these muffins, and stuffed them full of fruit and nuts. There’s nothing sorrier than a flat topped bran muffin, so make sure to fill your muffin cups full, even if it means leaving one empty.
an easy one bowl recipe
I’ve been working on streamlining my recipes lately. I think that there are lots of extra steps in most recipes that can easily be cut out without harm. A lot of it is just not necessary, or it makes such a miniscule difference that it’s not worth the extra effort. I found that even the process for these simple morning muffins that I’ve been making for years can be tweaked to result in less steps, less bowls, less trouble.
more bran muffins
- Blackberry Walnut Bran Muffins
- Zucchini Walnut Bran Muffins
- Cherry Almond Bran Muffins
- Date Nut Bran Muffins
- Buttermilk Bran Muffins
- Orange Walnut Bran Muffins
Fruit and Nut Buttermilk Bran Muffins
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup wheat bran
- 3/4 cup oat bran
- 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1 large egg
- 2/3 cups packed brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup chopped nuts
- 1/2 cup (heaping) mixed dried fruit, chopped if necessary
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Spray a 12-cup muffin pan, or fill with paper liners.
- Whisk together the brans, buttermilk, oil, egg, sugar, and extract in a mixing bowl, making sure that the egg gets beaten as you whisk. Set aside for 10 minutes.
- Fold the fruit and nuts into the mixture, then hold a sieve or mesh strainer over the bowl and sift in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into the batter. Mix well.
- Fill muffin cups nice and full. You may only get 10 muffins if you fill them full.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out without batter clinging to it. Don’t over bake.
- Cool slightly then remove the muffins from the tin and cool on a rack. They can be frozen after they’ve cooled, if you want, just wrap them individually, and well.
Nutrition
Nice post.. Thanks for sharing this information with us
Lovely muffins indeed! I think I could do a whole blog dedicated to your recipes. “I made Sue’s this, and I made Sue’s that!” Beautiful idea with the fruit and nuts. Dang girl.
Love this recipe, Sue! The dried fruits look fabulous. My bran muffin recipe pales next to this one. Do you eat the tops first like I do?
buttermilk and fruit go so well together and i bet these muffins are phenomenal
Muffins! Hooray! These look great for breakfast–and then another breakfast–and then hopefully a third breakfast before they’re all gone. 🙂
Well, our excuse is that they are really are best the day they’re made!
Looks good all the way around. Gorgeous fruit, “healthy” bran/fruit breakfast, and even your beautiful mug has me wistful 😉
I totally agree in regard to the recipe steps…. they are especially cumbersome when printing a recipe from a television episode. The last two I printed out were not only too many bowls and too many steps…. they were invented methods.
Thanks, Kate! I think a lot of the steps and methods are just copied and pasted blindly over the years, without any real basis. I think the more complicated and messy a recipe is, the less likely people are to make it.
I now have three of your recipes lined up, it’s like a runway in here.
And you have YET to send me one of yours…
I can’t wait to get to Whole Foods and purchase a variety of dried fruits. Lovely!
Best,
Bonnie
These are the best looking bran muffins ever! And premium dried fruit sounds like a luxury automobile that once you test drive it, you just can’t get back into that 10 year old rusty beater quite the same 🙂
Clearly you dislike bran muffins. 😛 That fruit sounds and looks fantastic! I just made a note on my TJ’s grocery list. Thanks for the tip!
Yup—a little bit embarrassing how many bran muffins I’ve posted!
Ha. As someone with an almost absurd amount of summer squash recipes posted, I understand! I barely posted any of them this year, for fear of scaring everyone away.