These vegan bran muffins have impressively puffy tops and a soft, lightly moist texture. This is a simple bake that only requires two mixing bowls–perfect for throwing together quickly! Soaking the wheat bran ahead of time makes these muffins light; not dense. I love having one with a frothy maple sea salt latte or other hot drink as a little breakfast treat.
I have been working on a bran muffin recipe for over a year now! I did many versions with cocoa, berries, nutty streusel etc, and none of them were clicking. The bran would just overpower the other flavor elements every time.
Eventually I realized that I needed to embrace the BRAN in bran muffin. It sounds silly, but that’s ultimately what led me to this recipe. This is the same strategy that I adopted with my well-loved Vegan Carrot Muffins recipe–just embrace the main ingredient and help it shine!
Wheat bran has a nutty, slightly sweet toasted flavor. Dark brown sugar as the primary sweetener bumps up those qualities along with warm cinnamon and vanilla. This vegan bran muffins recipe has a lot of plant-based baking staples. There’s neutral-flavored oil, molasses, and apple sauce for moisture, as well as soy milk with apple cider vinegar for vegan “buttermilk.”
I use two of my favorite vegan muffin tricks here. Letting the batter rest for 15 minutes helps to hydrate the flour and wheat bran more fully. I also bake them for the first 5 minutes at a higher temperature for higher muffin tops.
Unlike a lot of breakfast muffins, these treats are actually incredibly satisfying.
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Tender Vegan Bran Muffins with Brown Sugar & Cinnamon
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups (300 mL) unsweetened soy milk
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 ½ cups (70 grams) wheat bran
- 1 ½ cups + ⅓ cup (220 grams) all-purpose flour
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- ½ cup (107 grams) dark brown sugar
- ½ cup (120 mL) neutral-flavoured oil (such as sunflower or grapeseed)
- ¼ cup (60 mL) unsweetened apple sauce
- 2 tablespoons unsulphured molasses (DO NOT use black strap)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Notes
- In my recipe tests, using cooking spray to grease the muffin tin (rather than plain oil) made the muffin tops puff up quite a bit more. Cooking spray is typically a combination of vegetable-based oils and flour. Plain oil and muffin liners will work just fine, but the tops will not be as puffy.
- The molasses that I use for baking is sometimes called “fancy molasses” on the carton.
- You could add ⅔ cup dried fruit to this muffin batter! I would use all 12 muffin cups if you’re doing that. Raisins come to mind of course, but chopped dates could also be nice.
- DO NOT forget to lower the temperature to 350°F after 5 minutes!
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, combine the soy milk and apple cider vinegar. Give it a quick stir. Then, add the wheat bran and stir until all of the bran is wet. Set aside for 15 minutes.
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Stir to combine.
- Once the 15 minutes are up, add the following to the soaked bran mixture: brown sugar, oil, apple sauce, molasses, and vanilla. Stir to combine.
- Add the wet bran mixture to the flour mixture in the large bowl. Stir until just combined, scraping the bottom of the bowl. This batter is thick! Let the batter rest on the counter for 15 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 400°F and prepare your muffin tin by greasing 10 of the cups with cooking spray/oil or using paper liners (see notes).
- Once the muffin batter has rested, transfer to the prepared cups in the muffin tin. The batter will go right to the top.
- Bake the muffins at 400°F for 5 minutes. Then, lower the heat to 350°F and bake another 12-15 minutes or so. The muffins should be slightly firm when you press down on a top, and a toothpick inserted into the center of one should come out clean.
- Let the muffins cool before enjoying.
These muffins were so delicious. I had little 1/2 cup containers of applesauce so I used closer to 1/2 cup applesauce and 1/4 cup oil and added 1/2 cup raisins to the batter. Came out with 12 delicious and nicely risen muffins! I sifted a tiny bit of flour after greasing my muffin tins, since I do not usually keep baking spray in the house.
Yum! I’m not much of a cook or baker, but I’ve actually made this recipe twice, and we love them! Easy to make and share, came out just as advertised, and so delicious. Makes me feel accomplished! Thank you, Laura.
So good!
These came out so well! They’re so soft and have such a pleasant, light, warm flavor. I especially enjoy them with butter and strawberry jam :)
Wow delicious! You don’t miss! These were super moist, hearty and so tasty. I only had blackstrap molasses so I added chopped dates and a little less salt. Worked out just fine. Thank you for another lovely recipe!
Thanks for sharing your workaround with the blackstrap molasses! I know that lots of folks will find that helpful! :)
-L
I made these using Raisin Bran cereal (motivated by the grapenuts commenter), mashed banana (instead of apple sauce), half the sugar, and added more raisins because…bran muffins need raisins here! They were fantastic. Thank you for such a great recipe! Already planning to make more for the weekend!
Hi Laura! These look fantastic. Could I sub oat milk for the soy milk? Or you wouldn’t recommend?
I don’t love the taste of soy milk straight so I wouldn’t make use of the remaining carton.
Hi Lia,
I think oat milk should be fine here!
-L
I made these as written, adding chopped dates, and they are fantastic!! How do you recommend storing them overnight so as to keep the lovely crunchy tops, or do you find they soften up once wrapped/covered?
Hi Renay,
Thank you for this review! It is hard to preserve the crunchy top and keep the muffin moist overall. In general I like keeping muffins in a deep cookie tin that I usually reserve for Christmas cookies. It keeps them covered but it’s not super air tight.
-L
Literally the perfect vegan bran muffin. Appreciate your thorough testing process. I made them as-is and wound up with 12 perfectly domed, full, tall muffins. Will absolutely be remaking these, and I love one of the reviewer comments that they added walnuts!
Hi – i love bran muffins and have been searching for one a vegan one that is not overly sweet so i’m looking forward to trying these. A question about the molasses though. Is there something about the blackstrap molasses that will make the recipe fail? I much prefer the taste profile so don’t tend to use the “fancy” variety.
thanks.
Blackstrap molasses can be bitter and sometimes salty. Baking can intensify these flavours even further. If you prefer the taste of blackstrap in general, you’ll probably be fine with it in this recipe! It functions in the same way in terms of structure/holding moisture.
-L
great thanks. I will give it a try and keep in mind what you mentioned so i will know how to address if they are bitter or salty. always good to be forewarned.
I absolutely love these muffins! They are full of flavor and the recipe is easy to follow. I toasted the bran for a “nutty” flavor. I will definitely be adding this recipe to my weekly baking.
These are fantastic! Easy to assemble if one follows the steps as written. Excellent crispy top and tender crumb interior. Stoked to have a go to bran muffin recipe I can use and looking forward to trying with some dried fruit (or blueberries as I saw another reviewer did). Thank you Laura!
Who knew bran muffins could taste this good. Loved this recipe! Great texture. Not too sweet. We added raisins.
Can’t say I’ve ever been more excited to try a bran muffin recipe I’ve been following your recipe testing! They remind me of childhood, they’re SO good. I thought I had the correct molasses, but I didn’t, so I left it out. I’m sure it adds a great depth of flavor but they were still great without! I will definitely do it next time. I did add currants (I’m on a bit of a kick with granola) and it was super tasty. Can’t wait to make again!
Great recipe! I added frozen blueberries at the very end, after the 2nd 15 min absorption period, right before going into the oven.
Thank you!
I love your recipes!! I love bran muffins and really wanted to try so used what I had and they turned out fantastic! I had sweetened soy milk so used that, I used a very ripe banana mashed instead of applesauce, cut the brown sugar by half a cup to account for the added sweetness and I used date syrup instead of molasses (just out of curiosity). DELICIOUS!!! thank you for all of your delicious recipes ❤️
So delicious! I made these muffins last night with grape nuts, since it is what I had on hand. I did add chopped dates, too. Grape nuts cereal does have a little bit of sugar, but it did not make the muffins too sweet. It still had a light crumb, & is a wholesome, good, and a healthy treat. Thank you, again, for another tasty recipe!
Sharon,
I am fascinated by your grape nuts sub! When I was doing research for this recipe, I noticed a lot of bran muffin recipes with All Bran cereal instead of wheat bran, which I found kind of interesting. Thanks for sharing your experience and I”m glad it worked out!
-L
Excellent recipe. Perfect all around. Thanks for creating this Laura.
SO delicious and easy to make! Not too sweet. I thought 1 TBS of cinnamon would be overkill but it’s not at all…quite subtle in fact.
I’m one of those “never leave comments” people but I had to because these muffins are SO GOOD! I made them exactly as written, with the extremely minor addition of a sprinkle of turbinado sugar on top (we love a crunchy lid). They are moist, tender, so flavorful and just very delicious overall (and look exactly like the photos). I’ve made a few of your other baked goods and I’m so impressed with your vegan baking skills! We love them and look forward to making more in the future!
LOVE the idea of turbinado on top of these! I am doing that next time. Thanks for this comment and review, Morgan :)
-L
Love this recipe! I made mini muffins and reduced the bake time by a few minutes. Did the first half of the batch as written, and then folded in some clementine zest and chopped walnuts to the second half of the batter. Great texture and delicious!
This is making me want to eat bran muffins! Also, you’ve mentioned a couple times on here that you’ve been trying to get these to your liking so I’m so glad you did! (sorry if that’s creepy to remember! lol!)
Oh also going to make them lol
Hey Amanda,
It’s not creepy at all!! I have talked about bran muffins A LOT on here lately lol. Hope you get a chance to make them soon! :)
-L
The recipe looks great, I will definitely give them a try. Question about the applesauce: what is its purpose in the recipe, is that to add moisture? Asking since I have none and wondering if I can sub with coconut yogurt. Also planning to add rasins, because for me raisin-bran is the life, reducing the sugar amount by ~ 2 tablespoons in lieu of the sweetness added by rasins shouldn’t affect the recipe, or would it?
Hi Anna,
The apple sauce is there for moisture, yes. I did try a version of this recipe with coconut yogurt instead of apple sauce and did not love the results–just a warning! The acidity and sweetness of the apple sauce just worked more in its favor overall. The yogurt version seemed more dense to me. I have to be honest with you: I’m not 100% sure about subtracting 2 tablespoons of brown sugar in a version with raisins in addition to subbing coconut yogurt. When I did variations with raisins, I kept the recipe as-is (in its current iteration) and found the sweetness/moisture level to be just right.
-L
Thanks for your feedback Laura! I will wait with baking these until I buy applesauce, since I don’t want to compromise the quality. Might as well stick to original sugar amount as well.
These are fantastic! They are hearty, not too sweet and the texture is great. Mine came out looking just like the photos. I really appreciate how reliable your recipes are!
These look amazing! I can’t wait to try them. I love a warm bran muffin with a good smear of (vegan) butter.
This recipe looks great! I have a question about the molasses. I only have black strap. I would imagine that the flavor would overpower – is that the reason? Is there a decent substitute? Thanks for powering through to find this recipe.
Hi Mary Anne,
Yes, you’re right. Black strap molasses can be too bitter and sometimes salty. To replace it in this recipe, I’d go with 2 more tablespoons of the dark brown sugar.
-L
Yay, congrats on finishing this recipe, I am so stoked to try it! I work at a (not vegan) bakery and they makes bran muffins that people rave about with freshly milled bran soaked in buttermilk. I’ve always wanted to veganize the recipe so I could try them too, but now I can just use your recipe!! Thanks so much for sharing