Chocolate Fiber Muffins are chocolate bran muffins which despite being chocolaty and rich tasting, are lower in fat than the (non-chocolate) Sour Cream Bran Muffins. The fiber comes from Fiber One or All Bran cereal. I haven't tested it yet, but I'm sure Trader Joe's version of All Bran or Nature's Path would work as well. The key is you need the twiggy type fiber cereal and not flakes.
The original Chocolate Fiber Muffin recipe was on the Kellogg's website, but I made a few changes and typed up my version below. This recipe only requires one bowl.
Chocolate Fiber Muffins Substitutions Etc.
The picture above is updated, as you can see! I've tested with a few different substitutions. Both white whole wheat and all-purpose flour. For the milk, you can use buttermilk or make your own buttermilk by adding 4 teaspoons of lemon juice to a little less than 1 ⅓ cups of regular milk. I haven't tested these with Dutch process cocoa, but it might work since there's plenty of acid from the buttermilk. And then of course there are the chocolate chips, which you can trade out for chopped chocolate or chocolate chunks.
Recipe
One Bowl Chocolate Fiber Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 cup fiber cereal crushed after measuring (Fiber One or All Bran)
- 1 ⅓ cups buttermilk or 1 ¼ cup regular milk plus 4 teaspoons lemon juice or vinegar
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 1 large egg
- ¾ cup packed brown sugar (150 grams)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ½ cup unsweetened baking cocoa natural type, not Dutch or European style
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup white whole wheat flour or AP four (130 grams)
- ⅓ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.
- In a mixing bowl, combine the crushed cereal and buttermilk. Let stand for 5 minutes to soften cereal. Add oil, egg, brown sugar and vanilla and stir until very well mixed. Stir in cocoa, baking soda and salt and (again) mix well.
- Add the flour and stir just until mixed. Stir in chocolate chips and divide evenly among muffin cups.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes (I baked for 17).
- Let cool in muffin tin for about 2 minutes, then remove muffin cups from tin.
Alice says
I used Fiber One Chocolate Cereal....fabulous! Excellent recipe! Thanks!
Anna says
Hi Tracy,
Yes! White flour is fine.
Tracy says
can you use just white flour
Rita in TX says
I love this recipe! I added undrained (lazy) applesauce instead of the oil and 1/2 cup brown sugar rather than the 3/4 cup, and these were DELICIOUS! The texture was perfect and they had a deep rich chocolate taste (I hate milk chocolate). I added 60% cocoa chocolate chips instead of semi-sweet.
BTW, you can store these in the fridge and then warm them for 15 seconds in the microwave before eating them and they taste completely fresh out of the oven.
julie says
I made the Fiber one Yogurt- bran muffins yesterday. I made a 1/3 of a batch and gave some to my neighbor- they are sooo good I am making more after I log off. Yesterday I only had lemon FF yogurt so I used that and you cannot even slightly taste the lemon. I am considering adding choc chips to a few to see how that comes out
Anna says
Hi Jessica,
Well, I'm not sure wheat bran would work, but you could experiment. 1 cup of Fiber One weighs 2 ounces, so you'd probably want to weigh out 2 ounces of wheat bran or (for those without a scale) use about 3/4 cup. You also might want to bump up the sugar by about a tablespoon because Fiber One is kind of sweet.
Jessica "Su Good Sweets" says
These look delicious! Do you know if I can substitute wheat bran for the cereal? I use wheat bran in a lot of recipes, and I don't have Fiber One on hand.
This recipe reminds me of Carole Walter's "Too Good to Be True" bran muffins from Great Coffee Cakes. There's a touch of cocoa powder, and I substituted half the oil with apricot paste (I pureed 2 Tbsp of dried apricots with a Tbsp or two of water). They were pretty good, but I would have liked them more chocolaty and brany.
julie says
Thanks- I never thought of the lemon juice and I already have that in my pantry!
Anna says
Julie, I think any of those other milks would work, so long as you added some vinegar or lemon juice for acid.
julie says
Is there a good substitution for the buttermilk? I am wondering if I could use soy milk or Rice milk and the 4 tbs vinegar....Or is there just a better sub?
Thanks!
Anna says
Natanya, my daughter was suspicious of the fiber bits and asked if I'd put pecans, which she does not like, in the muffins. I told her no. She picked at her muffin and said she just wasn't that hungry.
I ate one later and absolutely loved it. The muffins are rich, but not sweet or light like cupcakes....they're pretty filling. I think my daughter would have liked them had she been a bit hungrier. I gave a few to a (grown-up!) friend and am looking forward to hearing what she thought.
These are my Mastercook values.
If you make 10 muffins
230 Calories; 9g Fat (33.0% calories from fat); 5g Protein; 38g Carbohydrate; 6g Dietary Fiber; 22mg Cholesterol; 204mg Sodium.
If you make 12 muffins:
192 Calories; 8g Fat (33.0% calories from fat); 4g Protein; 32g Carbohydrate; 5g Dietary Fiber; 19mg Cholesterol; 170mg Sodium.
If you make 10 muffins but use unsweetened applesauce in place of oil (drain it first on a paper towel). I'm not sure the texture would be as good, but the muffins might still be okay.
181 Calories; 4g Fat (15.2% calories from fat); 5g Protein; 39g Carbohydrate; 6g Dietary Fiber; 1mg Cholesterol; 208mg Sodium.
Natanya says
This recipe is really attractive to me for a couple of reasons:
1. It looks Weight Watchers point friendly - and indeed it is. I ran the ingredients list through the WW recipe builder and these are 4 points each, even if you only make 10 instead of 12. That's a great point value for a mid-day snack or an after-dinner bit-o-chocolate.
2. It looks kid friendly. I just shipped my daughter off to see her grandparents, but when she gets back and school starts I'm going to bake a batch of these for her school snack. She loves chocolate and if I can sneak some fiber in without her knowing, all the better.
Anna says
Well, good luck. You'll need it because yogurt is completely different than vegetable oil. If you want to cut the fat, you might have better luck with drained apple sauce or prune baby food or something with less moisture. If I were cutting the fat, I'd use 2 tablespoons of oil and 2 tablespoons prune baby food. But these aren't that fattening to begin with.
I haven't tried Fiber One on chicken, but I saw a few recipes on their site that looked good.
Kim says
These look great! I'm gonna try them with lowfat plain Greek yogurt in place of the vegetable oil. Wish me luck!
Fiber One cereal is amazing. I crush it up, add Italian seasoning, garlic powder and parmesan cheese, and use it for a coating for baked chicken breasts. Deelish!