Bran Muffins

 

Jam filled bran muffins

Bran Muffins Bake them at home to provide a fibre rich breakfast and on the go snacks choice for family

Baked products are notorious for being laden with sugar and fats, despite that we crave them and indulge eating them often. Plus children love them, however these treats when baked at home gives us an option to control the ingredients and portion sizes.

Wheat bran is an excellent source of dietary fiber aids in preventing:

 colon diseases (including cancer), stomach cancer, breast cancer, gallbladder disease, hemorrhoids and hiatal hernia. It is also used for treating constipation, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes.

These bran muffins are delicious! Very moist with a hint of sweetness, and the molasses give the muffins a great rich flavor.

Some of these are filled with jams, and fruit preserves, some with fresh chopped cherries, peaches and I left some plain. Filled Bran Muffins, contains a whopping amount of bran with some white flour.

Here goes a two very well tested and a healthier recipe options for baking and enjoying breakfast muffins. 

Bake it at home to provide a fibre rich breakfast and on the go snacks choice for family. 

1- Filled Bran Muffins:

 Ingredients 

 makes 12-14 regular size muffins of 24-30 small muffins


1 1/4 cups/55gms wheat bran (can go as much as 100gms)

1 cup/150gms white flour (maida/regular flour)


1/225ml cup buttermilk (add equal amount of yogurt and milk stir to mix them and leave for 10 min)


1/2 cup/157gms/117ml vegetable oil


3/4 cup/100gms brown sugar 


1 egg 


1 tablespoon molasses 


1 teaspoon baking powder 


1 teaspoon baking soda


1/2 teaspoon salt 

fillings of your choice ½ tsp per muffin

Directions:

1- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease a 12 cup muffin tin, or line with paper muffin liners. 

2-In a small bowl, mix together the wheat bran and buttermilk. Set aside to soak until thickened, about 10 minutes.

3- In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to blend together the brown sugar, vegetable oil, egg and molasses. 

4- Stir in the bran mixture. 

 5- Soft together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; 

6- Add in the batter until just moistened dont try to make a smooth paste. 

7-  Spoon batter into muffin cups, by fill it half and then placing the filling genrally no more then1/2 tsp and then top with rest of the batter the tins should be 3/4 filled. 

8-  Leave one of the tins empty and half fill it with water for even baking.

9- Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or a tooth pick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Variations:

-        A mashed banana added to the bran/buttermilk mixture

-        add  any fruit jam or preserve to each muffin tin in between scoops of batter in each muffin tin or a fresh chopped apple for the raisins

-        add chopped fresh cherries or peaches between scoops

-        Increasing the amount of fibre wont effect the muffins, I went as high as 150gms.

  
Recipe-2

Raisin Bran Muffins 

Ingredients:


45gms plain flour (maida or chappati flour)
55 gms wholewheat flour
50gms  wheatbran
100gms brown sugar
1 and 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 tsp salt
250ml Buttermilk
Juice of 1/2 medium sized lemon 
55gms Oil (canola, sunflower or any vegetable oil, or unsalted softened butter)
 1 egg
1 tsp cinnamon

Directions: Makes 

Makes 12 large muffins

- Preheat oven to 400F/200C and greese or line a muffin tray
-Sift all dry ingredients together
-Now add the bran and  raisins 
- cream the buttermilk, lemon juice, egg  and oil in a mixing bowl
-slowly stir in the dry mixture in the batter only untill everything is just mixed.
-Pour in prepared muffins tins/tray, leaving one cup half filled with water
-Bake 20-25 minutes on 400F/200C test  inserting a toothpick which comes out clean if completely cooked


Note: 

Good baking is all about accurate measures and the freshest of ingredients. 

Check out weight coversions .

I prefer using a digital weighing scale for accuracy and

Pizza the Neapolitan Cuisine

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Pizza the Neapolitan Cuisine (Greco- Roman period food) got popular globally by migrating Italians to other countries as a means of sharing their cultures to the natives. It is a highly accessible dish and can be tailored to adjust the local tastebuds allowing unlimited variations. It is rich, but complete food often cooked with simple ingredients. 

 

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In Pakistan don’t think any Italians migrated and introduced Pizza.But In early 90s the influx of returning Pakistani families from Gulf Countries after the war brought the demand for pizza since they have been consuming it from the many international pizza chains. Since then, every other day we have new pizza chains coming up, bakeries have their own versions, restaurants have it on their menu, and people love to bake them at home filling it with the endless topping of their choice. 

 So, in my persuit of cooking healthy tasteful and varied meals, I started experimenting with different styles of Vegetable pizza.

The rule of thumb when I am cooking is more vegetable, specially the green leafy ones, wholewheat/whole grain carbohydrate, low or reduced fat dairy, minimum possible additives and food colors and packaged products. Keeping these in mind I have put together the ingredients for vegetable pizza often stacking with a medley of crunchy vegetable on wholewheat thin crust topped with preferably reduced fat mozarella.  I generally use less cheese topping, you might want to use more.

Unlike Newyork where wholewheat pizza dough is common on super market shelves, we don’t get it so easily in Karachi.  Thankful to Necos whole food store for making wholewheat pizza dough for me.  It can be easily made at home well. Nonetheless, the ready to roll dough from Necos made my life easy.

Following the guidelines from Dr. Maya Adams, from Stanford University, she is teaching Cooking and Child Nutrition course that I am currently enrolled in, I made the pizza sauce instead of using one off the super market shelf. We will be safe from chemical preservatives and artificial colors with homemade pizza sauce, it is easy and can be adjusted as per our taste and available ingredients.

Pizza Sauce

Ingredients:

½ KG- ripe red tomatoes

1 medium onion

1 tbsp chopped or paste garlic

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp brown sugar

1 tsp mixed Italian herb (Basil, Oregano, Thyme)

¼ tsp red chillies or ½ tsp red chillie flakes

Can also use chopped green chillies

1 tbs olive oil

Instructions:

-Chop tomatoes and onions.

- In a pan sauté onions in olive oil until and then add garlic and sauté until transparent

-add tomatoes, salt, sugar, chillies and let cook until mushy

- now puree it with a hand beater/motorized smoothie maker/or blend in a blender and put back in the pan. You can leave it chunky if you want, taste equally good.

- stir in the corn flour and herbs until completely blended

- simmer for 2 more minutes and let cool before spreading on the crust.

Pizza Toppings:

There are no set ingredient for this, however, my suggestion is to experiment with more leafy green vegetable since they are nutrient dense. Vegetable in any combination and quantity can be used, following are my favourite and I often top my vegetable pizza from this list sometime all of it:

-       Spinach, just removed their stems and leave the whole leaves

-       Mustard (Methi saag)

( wash and rub a bit of lemon juice, black pepper/lemon pepper and olive oil on leafy greens

-       Sliced mushrooms

-       Capsicum

-       Sundried tomatoes

-       Onions

-       Olives

-       Pickled jalapeno

Putting it all together:

Roll the wholewheat pizza dough on a pizza pan, and spread the sauce, top with green leafy vegetable and then on top of it rest of the vegetable. Finally top with shredded mozzarella cheese, try to use the reduced fat cheese if you can find it. The pizza is generally done in 15 minutes on high in the medium shelf of the oven. I also often bake the pizza on outdoor grill, taste awesome.