The Best Bran Muffins Recipe Around! A Family Favorite for Decades.

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These bran muffins are the perfect make-ahead breakfast.  Not only are they a delicious, high fiber food, and hearty, but the recipe also makes a HUGE batch of bran muffins.  And they freeze fabulously.

Large batch recipe for fabulous bran muffins (makes 60 muffins!) that are full of fiber and the perfect grab-and-go breakfast.

Seriously, this is a LARGE batch of muffins.  It makes 60 muffins at a time.  That's why the name on my well-worn recipe card is "Bran Muffins by the Pail-Full."

Silver galvanized metal pail full of homemade bran muffins.

These bran muffins were a breakfast staple in my house when I was growing up, and now I make them for my family.  I love being able to continue a family tradition and pass down a recipe from generation to generation.

Ingredients for bran muffins on a white marble background.

Ingredients for a Very Large Batch of Bran Muffins:

  • 6 cups All bran (100% bran) cereal
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cp boiling water
  • 4 cups (1 quart) buttermilk
  • 3 cups sugar
  • 1 cup shortening
  • 4 eggs
  • 5 cups flour
  • 5 teaspoons baking soda

Mixture of All Bran cereal, buttermilk, and boiling water for bran muffins.

The very first step (and it's important to do this part first), is to boil the water and stir it  and the salt into the bran cereal.  Add the buttermilk and let it sit.  You want the cereal to get as nice and mushy as possible.

This wasn't really an issue 30 years ago when I was making these with my mom, but cereal technology has clearly changed, and it stays crispy in milk far longer than it used to.  Give the liquids some time to start to break down the bran.

What Can I use Instead of Buttermilk?

Don't have any buttermilk on hand?  Don't worry.  Just use regular milk, and add about 1 teaspoon of vinegar per cup of milk.  

Bran muffin batter in a Kitchenaid mixing bowl.

Cream the sugar and shortening together.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each egg.  Stir into the bran mixture.  Combine the flour and baking soda.  Add to the bran mixture and stir just enough to combine.

Bran muffin batter scooped into lined muffin tin.

Scoop into lined muffin tins and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes, until a test skewer comes out of the center of the muffin clean.

Bran muffin batter stored in the fridge.

Making Muffin Batter Ahead of Time and Storing it in the Fridge:

  • If you love freshly baked muffins, you're in luck!  You can actually store the bran muffin batter in a covered container in the fridge for up to 4 weeks, and bake just what you need each morning!

Freshly baked bran muffins in a muffin tin.

I actually prefer to bake all of my muffins (60 of them at a time!) and freeze the already baked muffins.

Gallon sized freezer bag full of a dozen bran muffins ready to freeze.

They freeze gorgeously, and don't take much time to defrost at all.  And if you forget and have to warm one up in the microwave, they're absolutely delicious spread with a bit of butter.

Silver galvanized metal pail full of homemade bran muffins.

Nutritional Information for Bran Muffins:

Bran muffin nutritional information

Free printable, one page bran muffin recipe:

Navigational image leading reader to one page, printable bran muffin recipe.

What's your favorite grab-and-go breakfast?

Other Recipes You Might Like:

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Nicole Wills, creator of Tikkido

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