Honey Bran Muffins with Tart Red Currants

These honey bran muffins are great on their own or with tart red currants thrown in . . .

Yay! It’s the end of summer and red currants are in season! And they are so pretty!

But wait, what can I do with red currants other than make red currant jelly? (Hopefully you, unlike me, had the presence of mind to google red currant recipes before leaving the grocery store. Most recipes using red currants I found were for desserts.) Naturally, I answered this question with a red currant muffin recipe. What can I say, muffins are popular around here?!

Red Currant Muffins

These muffins have a comforting honey molasses flavor. They rely on bran and whole wheat flour as the base. I completely avoided all purpose flour, because why not when you’re already making a fibrous muffin? Because the honey flavor comes across so well, I discovered that adding a small, very tart berry, like a red currant, works really well against it without overriding the flavor.

These were very delicious muffins. My kids even liked the currants! Unfortunately, the part they liked about the red currants was how fun it is to pick them out and flick them across the table. I may re-make the honey bran muffin recipe this fall with chopped or grated apples next time instead of currants (less conspicuous and less fun to flick than bright red berries).

Alternatively, just don’t add berries to some/all of the muffins. I think my kids would have been pretty happy eating them plain (they would eat pieces I hand-fed them quite happily). That said, I really did like the berries and thought they made the muffins more visually appealing.

A note about bran

I didn’t know exactly what bran was until I needed to buy it one day and realized there are many types of bran. I wasn’t quite sure what to buy and how much it mattered. So let’s take a step back for a minute.

There are several types of bran you can buy: wheat bran, oat bran, rice bran, corn bran, barley bran, rye bran, etc. “Bran” just refers to the outer layer of a cereal grain.

Generally speaking, cereal grains, including wheat, oats, rice, corn, barley, and rye, have three parts. First, the “bran” outer layer, which is rich in fiber, vitamins, and minerals. The second part is the germ, a nutrient rich core that contains healthy fats, vitamins, and minerals. Last is the most delicious bit, the endosperm, which contains starch and a bit of protein.

Therefore, wheat “bran” is just the outer layer of the wheat grain. When you eat white flour, you are typically just eating the endosperm, because the bran and germ are typically removed in the process of milling. You still get the bran when you eat whole wheat flour, but often the germ is removed to improve shelf life, because the fat can go rancid which shortens the flour’s shelf life.

On the other hand, oat bran is the bran layer surrounding the inner kernel of the oat. Note that you still get this bran layer if you eat groats or rolled oats, but you wouldn’t get it for instant oats, refined oat flours, or oat bran cereals.

For these muffins, use wheat bran. Oat bran probably would work, but the texture will be softer and the muffin may be dryer (as oat bran tends to absorb more moisture). The flavor would be a bit different as well.

Health Benefits

Personally, I like reading about the health benefits of what I’m eating. For some reason, it gets me more excited about my food, and I enjoy eating it more. So here we go.

Red currants have lots of vitamin C and vitamin K. Also lots of antioxidants (anthocyanins, flavonoids, phenolic acids, tannins, and carotenoids). Plus iron, potassium, and manganese. They’re also low in sugar and calories (so its a good trade of sugar versus nutrients).

As mentioned above, wheat bran is the outer layer of the wheat grain that is typically removed in the process of milling refined white flour. Therefore, wheat bran is very rich in insoluble dietary fiber, which gives you a feeling of fullness, helps regulate blood sugar levels by slowing your absorption of sugar into your bloodstream, and keeps things regular. That’s why these honey bran muffins are on my list of solidly high fiber foods. Bran also has lots of vitamins and minerals, especially zinc and B vitamins (specifically, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 9). It is basically good for all the reasons that white flour is not good for you.

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