Muffin Making With a Toddler
Last week I had a rainy afternoon to fill with my toddler. As his greatest delight is to help make dinner, I thought it would be a grand experiment to bake muffins with him. I must warn you that I am not a seasoned baker. I like to eat baked goods every now and then, but I rarely have a strong desire to make my own. This was not a quest for the most delicious, moist muffin on the planet. This was purely an exercise in entertaining the tot and if I managed to get a decent batch of muffins out of the deal, great!
I consulted Mark Bittman's tried and true How to Cook Everything recipe for basic muffins. His recipe is perfect for sharing with a toddler if you're concerned about sugar in your kid's diet. The muffins are only lightly sweet but still flavorful.
If you haven't already guessed, baking with a small human is very messy. If you hate messes, this is not the project for you. Also, this recipe takes twice as long to prepare when you have help.
Basic Muffins - Spiced Raisin
Ingredients:
3 Tbsp. melted butter of canola/other neutral oil
1cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup sugar, or to taste
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. all spice
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/4 cup raisins
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line your 12-cup muffin tin with paper cups baking cups. Using paper baking cups is a nice way to distract your toddler while you pull out the other ingredients. Mine played with the paper cups happily while I turned on the oven. You should assume that you'll need to replace a few of the cups, if not all of them, because they make a very nice crinkly sound when you squish them.
2. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. I measured most of the flour into another bowl and let the toddler scoop it into the mixing bowl with a measuring cup. While he was doing that, I combined the spices into a small cup. I let him pour the spices into the mixing bowl. Expect flour to be everywhere. I measured out the baking powder and let my tot "mix" everything together with a wooden spoon.
3. Mix egg, melted butter (cooled), and milk in a separate bowl. Make a well in the dry ingredients and cut and fold the wet ingredients with a spatula into dry until the batter is slightly lumpy, but shiny and wet. You can't really let the toddler help with this part. The batter is too heavy for small arms and hands to handle.
4. Measure out the raisins and let the toddler pour them into the batter. Yours might eat a few. Mine did. Add more. Quickly mix them in.
5. Spoon some batter into a paper cup to show the tot how it's done. I put some batter on the spoon for my son and let him spoon the batter into a cup. He needed help getting it off the spoon so I had get my fingers sticky.
6. Wash toddler's hands. Quickly. Before he sticks his fingers in his mouth.
7. Bake muffins for 20-30 minutes until the tops are brown and a toothpick comes out clean.
8. Expect your toddler to have a hard time waiting for the muffins to bake. Mine nearly melted into a pool of goo on the kitchen floor from all the waiting. Maybe you'll be smarter than me and find some distracting games to play in another part of the house.
9. Let muffins cool for 5 minutes if your toddler will let you. I had to remove a muffin from the tin and cut it up so it would cool faster to feed the famished child.
Serves: 12 adults, 24 toddlers
Mark Bittman, Wiley, 2006. How to Cook Everything
--flauersmartini
debbie on May 04, 2009 at 05:18 PM
Hey, I just blogged about baking with *my* toddler! I went with something even more messy: brownies. Much fun ensued. http://wordstoeatby.blogspot.com/2009/05/superfudgy-low-fat-brownies-zen-and-art_03.html
Flauers Martini on May 05, 2009 at 08:48 AM
Very nice post, Debbie! I especially love the fact that you took pictures. I didn't think to do that and wish I had. And yes, cooking with toddlers is fun when you are the Zen Master.