Easy bran muffins

I've had a few (good-natured, and wholly insincere) complaints about waistlines and calories lately, so I thought I'd address that... sort of.

Do you remember when muffins were a semi-healthy, high-in-fibre snack? More closely related to a scone than a cupcake? Perfect with a scraping of butter, a little cheese, a smidgen of jam? Currently, cupcakes are very 'in' and the only difference I can see between them and the thing that has been known as a muffin for the past decade or so is that a cupcake is iced (frosted).

This recipe came from my sister back in the days when a muffin was a bran muffin.

Oven temperature

180C

Ingredients

2 eggs
375ml brown sugar
100ml vegetable oil (I used sunflower)

500ml milk
625ml plain flour
12ml bicarbonate of soda
Pinch salt
5ml vanilla extract
500ml all bran flakes (you know: the breakfast cereal?)
250ml seedless raisins

Method

• Preheat the oven.
• Beat together the eggs, sugar and oil.
• Mix in the milk.
• Sift in the flour, salt and bicarb, and beat well.
• Add the vanilla, bran flakes and raisins and mix well with a spoon.
• Spoon the mixture into muffin pans (about half full to allow space for rising) and bake for 15-20 minutes until firm to the touch. They may form some pretty odd shapes, but what the heck? They taste the same! You should get about 18 muffins.
• Serve with a scraping of butter, a little cheese and/or a smidgen of jam... oh, and a cup of tea (or coffee, of course).