I love cooking muffins with Lara. There are lots of reasons why muffins work with toddlers; they rarely require exact measurements, you can shove all of the ingredients in a bowl at once and mix until your heart's content, and at the end of it all you have a single-serving snack suitable for a smaller appetite.
A couple of weeks ago we received a goody box from Princes packed full of tinned fruit (if you haven't entered my competition to win your own fruity breakfast hamper, do so now as it closes tomorrow). I mentioned at the time that I intended to reproduce one of my favourite breakfasts of all time, wholemeal pear muffins. So, as promised, here is my attempt. The recipe is based on a savoury wholemeal muffin recipe from a cookbook my Mum gave me (which is why the measurements are in cups). We tried to sweeten it with a little sugar and some honey but I think they are actually still quite savoury at the end of it with tiny bursts of sweet pear goodness!
INGREDIENTS (Makes 6-12 muffins depending on size)
1.5 cups of wholemeal flour (I could only find bread flour)
0.5 cups of plain white flour
1 cup porridge oats
0.5 cups brown sugar (I used demerara because its what I had in the cupboard)
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk (whole or semi-skimmed)
1 egg
1 tablespoon honey (if it is thick honey you may want to melt it a bit first)
1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tin of peeled pears (about 4 pears) chopped into pieces no bigger than 1cm cubed (we used Princes tinned pears in grape juice!)
METHOD
A couple of weeks ago we received a goody box from Princes packed full of tinned fruit (if you haven't entered my competition to win your own fruity breakfast hamper, do so now as it closes tomorrow). I mentioned at the time that I intended to reproduce one of my favourite breakfasts of all time, wholemeal pear muffins. So, as promised, here is my attempt. The recipe is based on a savoury wholemeal muffin recipe from a cookbook my Mum gave me (which is why the measurements are in cups). We tried to sweeten it with a little sugar and some honey but I think they are actually still quite savoury at the end of it with tiny bursts of sweet pear goodness!
INGREDIENTS (Makes 6-12 muffins depending on size)
1.5 cups of wholemeal flour (I could only find bread flour)
0.5 cups of plain white flour
1 cup porridge oats
0.5 cups brown sugar (I used demerara because its what I had in the cupboard)
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk (whole or semi-skimmed)
1 egg
1 tablespoon honey (if it is thick honey you may want to melt it a bit first)
1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tin of peeled pears (about 4 pears) chopped into pieces no bigger than 1cm cubed (we used Princes tinned pears in grape juice!)
METHOD
- Grease a muffin tin or (for a smaller muffin) a series of cupcake cases. I used the muffin tin, Lara insisted on cupcake cases. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
- Get your little helper to mix together the flour, baking powder, oats and sugar in a big bowl.
- Stir in the wet ingredients - milk, egg and honey
- Sprinkle in the cinnamon and nutmeg (beware a toddler weilding a jar of cinnamon)
- Finally stir in the chopped pears until the mixture is well combined.
- Split the mixture evenly between the muffin cases. Our mix made 6 full-sized muffins and 3 cupcake sized ones.
- Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until golden all the way over. Once cooked, remove from their cases as soon as your (adult) fingers are capable of holding the hot containers. The longer you leave them in the cases, the soggier they will get (I know from experience).
- If you want to serve them for breakfast you can either get up early to make them or else make them the night before and warm them up in the oven for 15 minutes before serving. The muffins don't taste anywhere near as nice cold as they do warm. I think they taste best served with a sliver of real butter. Lara prefers hers plain
