According to King Arthur Flour test kitchen Baker Susan Reid, "one of the little publicized characteristics of the typical bran muffin is that in order to be palatable, they're very high in fat."
"Let's face it," she says. "Bran isn't too far from well, sawdust, when it comes to texture, so bakers have compensated with lots of oil to make a muffin that's moist enough to get you to take a second bite."
Reid created this pumpkin muffin recipe after finishing the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion Cookbook and needing to trim a few pounds.
"I went on a quest for a muffin that tasted good for breakfast without pegging the calorie meter in the red zone," she says. "Enter pumpkin. Moist, flavorful, low calorie. How come nobody introduced these two to each other sooner?"
I don't know. But I'm glad she did, and I thank her for giving me permission to print this recipe.
Pumpkin Bran Muffins
- 1 15 oz. can pumpkin
- 1 cup bran cereal
- 1/4 cup butter, melted
- 1/2 cup (3-1/2 oz.) sugar
- 2 Tbsp. (1 oz.) brown sugar, packed
- 2 large eggs
- 3/4 cup buttermilk
- 1-1/4 cups (5 3/8 oz.) unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. ginger
- 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. allspice
- 1-1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 cup (6 oz.) raisins
- Demarara or coarse sugar for sprinkling
In a large mixing bowl, combine pumpkin, bran cereal, butter, and sugars. Stir in the eggs and buttermilk. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, spices, baking soda and baking powder. Stir into the pumpkin mixture, then stir in the raisins. Cover the bowl and refrigerate the batter for 4 hours or overnight.
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease or line the wells of a muffin pan with papers. Scoop the batter into the pan, using a heaping 1/4 cup of batter for each. Sprinkle the tops with sugar if desired, then bake in the preheated oven for 25-28 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove the muffins from the oven and allow them to cool in the pan for five minutes before taking them out of the pan to finish cooling on a rack.
Yield: 12 muffins.
Per muffin: 150 cal, 3g fat, 3g protein, 19g complex carbohydrates, 12g sugar, 4 g dietary fiber, 41mg cholesterol, 348mg sodium, 288mg potassium, 881RE vitamin A, 2mg vitamin C, 3mg iron, 69mg calcium, 127mg phosphorus.
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