Vanessa’s Apple Bran Breakfast Muffins

· by · in Breakfast/Brunch, Cakes and cookies. ·

Finished muffins

I have low blood sugar, so if I have something too sweet for breakfast, it sets me up wrong for the whole day. I’m also a bit of a breakfast-skipper during the week, so I like to find things that I can just grab and take to work to eat at my desk with my morning coffee. I couldn’t find any healthy breakfast muffin recipes that were exactly what I wanted, so I created my own. I thought I might have to experiment a bit with the balance of wet and dry ingredients, but no, I got it right first time which is probably more down to luck than anything! These are very low sweetness which is what I wanted…

WHAT YOU NEED:

2 cups wholemeal/whole wheat flour
2 cups bran flakes, roughly crushed
1/2 cup ground almonds
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/3 cup honey
3 tablespoons oil (I used groundnut oil)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 large apples

WHAT YOU DO:

1) In a large bowl mix the flour, bran flakes, ground almonds, bicarb, salt and cinnamon together.

2) In a jug beat the eggs with the milk, honey, oil and vanilla essence.

3) Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until well combined.

4) Peel, core and grate the apples.

Apples being grated

5) Stir the grated apples into the muffin mixture.

6) Spoon into 24 muffin cases.

7) Cook in pre-heated oven 170C/340F for 20 minutes.

Close-up of muffins

I was a bit concerned that they were overdone, because they looked quite dark on the top, but no, they were light and moist inside. These really are closer to bread than cake in terms of sweetness level, so they might not be to your taste, but this recipe is definitely one I’m going to remake. They are quite plain, so I might experiment a bit next time, like adding some chopped nuts which would add to their nutritional value as well as adding some texture. I’m also going to try increasing the amount of apple to see how far I can go with that without them going soggy! And I’m going to increase the ground almonds and cinnamon next time to see how that works.

They seem to freeze well too, which is what I did with half of mine, ready to defrost a couple at a time as needed.

15 responses to “Vanessa’s Apple Bran Breakfast Muffins”

  2. Vanessa, I have the same problem with blood sugar and too-sweet things… way up! Way down. These sound great. Thanks for sharing your recipe–I have no problems with bready vs. sweet. Yum!

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    • Yes, the ground almonds were just because I was looking through my cupboard wondering what else I could put in them, and found leftover ground almonds from when I made the macaroons a few weeks ago! There was half a cup left, so that’s what I went with.

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  5. Congrats on this first-time recipe! 😀
    They look delicious. I agree that too sweet first thing in the morning can be a turn-off, so these seem like they’d be a nice, hearty alternative. Do you think bananas over apples would make them too mushy?

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    • Thank you. It’s hard to say about the bananas isn’t it, I was worried that the apples may give off water and make them mushy, but they didn’t. Maybe if you used bananas, you’d need to cut down on the milk or something? I think I would look at the balance between wet and dry ingredients on a banana bread recipe to get a clue about substituting here – I’m certainly no expert!

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  6. You rock my dear, I have a bag of apples that I didn’t know what to do with AND my man has been begging me to bake him something with them lol. I’m gonna give these a try, they sound perfect for breakfast! Thanks a bunch 🙂

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  7. These look perfect for me and just the sort of thing that’s perfect for a bit of a weekend breakfast treat. I shall let you know how I get on – hope I have a bit of your first timers luck 😉

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