Sourdough Bran Muffins
from https://sourdoughbrandon.com/

These old-fashioned Sourdough Bran Muffins are full of fiber, not too sweet, and a great way to use sourdough discard! The bran muffins stay moist for days due to buttermilk, molasses, and sourdough discard. Feel free to substitute the pecans or raisins with other nuts or dried fruits (or leave out completely). This recipe is adapted from Joy of Cooking.

There’s no fermenting since the muffins use sourdough discard (or active starter), which you can use straight from the refrigerator. The baking soda and egg does all of the leavening.

Muffins are best fresh out of the oven, but these store well for a few days at room temperature. To get a couple of more days out of them, you can refrigerate the muffins for 4-5 days. Reheat them slightly in a toaster oven, or slice in half and brown with butter in a skillet!

You can bake these muffins right after mixing, but they do best with at least an hour or overnight rest in the refrigerator. This allows the flour and bran to soak some of the moisture. Additionally, it helps create the classic bakery-style muffin top dome.

For the best muffins, let your buttermilk, egg, and sourdough discard come to room temperature before mixing. The room temperature wet ingredients emulsify better and achieve a better rise.

For the first five minutes, I bake the muffins at 425ºF. Like my Soft Sourdough Rye Sandwich Bread or Sourdough Brioche Bread, this gives the muffins some extra oven spring and initial rise in the oven. This helps create the classic dome on top of your muffins!

You can add cinnamon or other warming spices like ginger to your muffins.

Dense bran muffins may be due to overmixing your batter, which creates a chewy muffin. It’s also possible you overbaked them.

200 g All-purpose Flour, 1 ½ cups
85 g Wheat Bran, 1 ½ cups
1 ¼ tsp Baking Soda
½ tsp Kosher Salt
Orange Zest, from 1 orange
454 g Buttermilk, 2 cups
1 Egg
120 g Sourdough Discard, ½ cup, or active starter
170 g Unsulphered Molasses, ½ cup
50 g Light Brown Sugar, ¼ cup
55 g Unsalted Butter, melted, 4 TBS
112 g Pecans, 1 cup, toasted and chopped, unsalted
80 g Raisins, ½ cup
Raw Sugar, optional, for topping

If your pecans aren't already toasted, toast them in a small skillet for a couple of minutes. Remove from the heat, cool, and chop. Set aside.

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Set aside.

In another bowl, whisk the wet ingredients until incorporated.

Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients and mix until only a few specks of flour remain. Use a spatula to fold in the pecans and raisins and mix just until combined.

For the best results, rest the batter in the refrigerator for at least an hour or overnight. The batter will hydrate in the refrigerator and result in taller muffins.

Preheat the oven to 425ºF (218ºC).

Line a standard muffin pan with muffin tins or paper liners and spray with non-stick baking spray or oil. This recipe makes about 16 muffins, so save any remaining batter to bake later if you have one muffin pan.

Distribute the batter evenly among the muffin cups, filling most of the way up. I like to use a cookie or ice cream scoop for a cleaner transfer process. Sprinkle the tops with raw sugar or more wheat bran.

Bake for 5 minutes. Then, lower the oven temperature to 350ºF (177ºC) and bake for another 15 minutes or until the tops are golden and a toothpick inserted in the middle of the muffins comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack and enjoy!

16 standard-sized muffins