M is for Muffins

Muffins are a great recipe for children to help you with or even, if they are old enough, to complete on their own – at least up to the stage where they need to go in the oven.

If you start with a basic muffin recipe like this one from the Stay at home mum website you can make them any flavour you and your child likes. And if you omit the sugar you can make savoury ones too.

Our current favourites in the three foot cooks household are Raspberry and white chocolate and Banana.  There are a lot of flavour combinations that can be used with this basic recipe.  I have listed some at the end of this post but feel free to experiment and find one that works for your little cook.   

So today I thought we would try something different – for our family anyway. 

Apple, Banana  and Cinnamon Muffins

Basic Muffin Recipe

    2 cups Self Raising Flour

    1/2 cup sugar
    1 egg, beaten

    1/4 cup vegetable oil

    1 cup milk

To make apple, banana and cinnamon muffins, add 1 ripe banana, mashed, ½ cup apple, grated or pureed and ½ tsp cinnamon.

Here’s how we made them:

Preheat the oven to 175^oC. Prepare a 12 hole muffin tray by greasing tray or lining with paper cases.

Mix the flour and sugar together in a large bowl.

Bee measuring the flour into the bowl.

Measuring dry ingredients is a good skill for children to practise

 Lightly beat the egg and then add to flour mix along with oil and milk.

Bee mixing in the egg, oil and milk

 Gently mix in your chosen flavourings - in our case the pureed apple, mashed banana and cinnamon.

 Spoon the mix into the muffin tray.  As you can see from the photos we experimented with a spoon and a 1/4 cup measure for filling the tray with mix.  Even though the 1/4 cup measure was messy it got the job done quickly.  The spoon takes longer and needs to be refilled a lot more often.

Trying out the spoon to fill the muffin tray

The 1/4 cup measure is messy but quicker

The number of muffins this makes will depend on what flavourings and how much of them you add.  This variation made 14 standard size muffins.  Plain vanilla mix will make 12 muffins.

Apple, banana and cinnamon muffins

 

Bee loved these muffins so much that she had 2 for dessert. They are also delicious served warm with vanilla ice cream and maple syrup.

Flavour ideas:

Blueberry – add ½ cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Choc Chip – add ½ cup milk or dark chocolate chips

Chocolate – ¼ cup cocoa, mix into the flour before adding

Vanilla – 1tsp vanilla extract

Jam filled – 1tsp vanilla extract added to basic mix, fill muffin cases, add 1 tsp strawberry jam and push down slightly into mix with end of spoon

Muesli – 2 tbs honey and 1 cup toasted muesli (you may need to add a little extra milk or orange juice so the mix is not too dry)

Pizza – ham, grated cheese and chopped pineapple

Tomato and corn – 1 cup frozen corn kernels, ½ cup tomato salsa, 1/3 cup grated cheese

Pumpkin – Leave out the milk and add 300g pumpkin, cooked, mashed and cooled, 1 cup grated cheese

What is your child’s favourite afternoon snack?