Dear Eric: For more years than I like to contemplate I’ve been baking bran muffins. I’ve tried various combinations of ingredients and long ago came up with a recipe that is always delicious and has a nice tender crumb.
However, my muffins don’t have eye appeal. They sometimes puff up a bit around the edges, but never do they come to that triumphant shiny peak that the commercial muffins do. I’ve experimented with more or less of the leavening agents and hotter oven temperatures — but it makes no difference; my muffins end up flat. I’ve sent you my recipe. Can you spot something that may prevent rising and cracking around the edges? Jean Moore
Dear Jean: Baking recipes are formulas and if you stray too far from the original version, undesired things can happen.
Over the years you’ve tinkered with your bran muffin recipe, and in the one you sent me dry ingredients included one cup flour, one cup wheat bran and one cup quick oats. The item that immediately caught my eye was the oats.
In the bran muffin recipes I checked, all used wheat bran and flour as the most voluminous dry ingredients in the mix. The ratio of wheat bran to flour did vary a bit, but in many recipes it was one part wheat bran to one part flour, and in others, one and a half parts wheat bran to one part flour.
I didn’t find any wheat bran muffin recipes that used quick oats, and your recipe calls for an equal amount of it, bran and flour. I think the addition of that volume of quick oats has been causing your problems.
Steaming, rolling and cutting oat groats into several pieces is how quick-cooking oats are made. As their name suggests, quick oats cook more quickly than uncut, large-flake rolled oats.
Because they do cook quickly, this form of oats tends to vanish in baked goods and also soaks up a lot of moisture. When a cup of them, as you used, soften and cook, they would become quite heavy, which in turn would decrease the likelihood your bran muffins will rise in the middle.
The leavening agents used in bran muffin recipes is baking powder and/or baking soda. In your current recipe you said you add 1 Tbsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp baking soda. With regard to the baking powder, you’re using quite a bit more than I’ve seen called for in other recipes.
I’m guessing you bumped up the amount used because your quick-oat-rich bran muffins weren’t rising as you’d like. But adding too much baking powder may also explain why your muffins are turning out the way they do.
According to the great website, joyofbaking.com, too much baking powder can cause the batter to rise rapidly and then collapse. The result is a baked good with a coarse, fragile crumb and a fallen centre.
My advice to you is, rather than continue to tinker with your current recipe, that you instead start fresh with one that does yield the results you’re hoping for.
The recipe below is one I’ll hope you’ll try, which is a style of bran muffin my pastry-chef-trained wife has made for many years. It yields the nicely domed muffins you see in the photo and are rich and full of flavour. Because you like oats, rather them put them in the batter; I sprinkled some large flake oats on top of each bran muffin before baking.
Oat Topped Bran Muffins
Classic bran muffins that taste great served warm with a bit of butter. Their oat tops add a bit more nutrition and fibre.
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 18-20 minutes
Makes: 8 large muffins
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups wheat bran
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
• pinches ground cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
2 large eggs
1 cup homo or 2% milk
1/2 cup packed golden brown sugar
1/4 cup cooking molasses
1/4 cup vegetable oil
• vegetable oil spray
2 to 3 Tbsp large flake rolled oats
Preheat oven to 400 F.
Place the flour, bran, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices in a bowl. Whisk well to combine. Mix in the raisins, if using, and then set aside.
Place the eggs in a second bowl and beat until the yolks and whites are well blended. Mix in the milk, brown sugar, molasses and oil. Stir dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined.
Spray 8 of the cups, in a 12-cup, non-stick muffin pan with vegetable oil spray. Divide and spoon the batter into those 8 cups, filling each cup to, or slightly over, the top. Sprinkle the top of each muffin with a little of the large flake oats. Bake the muffins in the middle of the oven for 18 to 20 minutes, or until they spring back when gently touched in the centre.
Cool muffins 10 minutes, and then remove from muffin pan. Enjoy them now, or serve at room temperature.
Eric Akis is the author of the hardcover book Everyone Can Cook Everything. His columns appear in the Life section Wednesday and Sunday.
