Bran Muffins

My neighbour has been posted to the Middle East and whenever the family comes back for vacation, they always bring back the best dates from the region. They gave me another packet of dates from their recent summer vacation, I was determined to look for new ways to incorporate the delicious dates into a muffin recipe.  And these healthy muffins turned out nice and fluffy and yummy!  Even my eldest son, who is usually resistant to health foods, would eat them for breakfast :-).

This recipe uses buttermilk, which really helps give the muffins a wonderful texture as the lactic acid present in the buttermilk acidifies the baking powder and baking soda to produce carbon dioxide.

You can use half a packet of a 600 ml carton of buttermilk and freeze the remainder for the next time you require it.

You may also substitute the dates with any other dried fruit such as sultanas, cranberries or apricot.

Freeze extra muffins for breakfast in a zipblog bag.  Remove the frozen muffins from the freezer the night before to defrost. They'll just as nice and yummy the following morning. 

Bran Muffins with Dates (yields 12 muffins)

Ingredients
85g wheat bran (you can also use mixture of bran and wheat germ, eg 50g bran and 35g wheat germ) 300ml buttermilk
5 tablespoons olive oil or vegetable oil
1 egg
60g dark brown soft sugar
125g plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
100g dates (de-seeded and chopped)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

Method
1.       Preheat oven to 190 C.
2.       Mix together wheat bran (and wheat germ if used) and buttermilk; let stand for 10 minutes.
3.       Beat together oil, egg, sugar and vanilla and add to buttermilk mixture. Sift together flour, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder. Stir buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture until just blended. Fold in chopped dates and spoon batter into prepared muffin tin or paper muffin cups.
4.       Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean. Cool and enjoy!  


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