I've been on the look out for baking recipes that aren't too sweet to eat at morning tea. The recipe for these maple bran muffins appealed because the recipe doesn't contain sugar (but it does have 4 tablespoons of maple syrup). The original recipe asked for pecans, and instead I substituted with dried apricots. I thought that the dried apricots worked well, as they gave a bit of fruity sweetness to the nuttiness of the bran. I tried another batch using banana – and this was a big FAIL. I know that I liked the recipe because I didn't want something that was too sweet, but the banana batch just wasn't sweet enough. They were just too damn healthy tasting!
Old-fashioned maple bran muffins
Adapted from Linda Collister's Quick Breads
Makes 12 medium muffins
225g sour cream
125ml milk
75g wheat bran
35g wheat germ
1 large egg, beaten
4 tablespoons maple syrup
125g plain white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
a pinch of salt
100g dried apricots, chopped into small pieces (or 100g chopped pecans)
a little demerara or coarse sugar for sprinkling
In a large bowl combine the sour cream with the milk, then stir in the wheat bran and wheat germ and leave to soak for 30 minutes.
Heat the oven to 180°C.
Stir in the egg and maple syrup into the sour cream mixture. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt on to the mixture and mix in. Stir in the apricots
Spoon the mixture into muffin moulds. Sprinkle each muffin with a little sugar and then bake for about 25 minutes until firm to the touch.
Turn out on to a wire cooling rack. Eat the same day while still warm, or the next day gently reheated. Can be frozen for up to a month.
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