Magic muffins

Sophia is at that fussy eater stage of life. And she's an especially fussy one. She *might* eat a baked bean or two, if you're very lucky and the wind is blowing in the right direction. She also likes to pick the beans out of Nan's rice and peas. But that's about all the vegetables she'll eat. Or that's what she thinks. I sneck them into her when I can.

Ella's kitchen baby food pouches
She likes the brown one and the purple one(see below)

Better still, she sometimes calls them liquid chocolate!
They're not the cheapest thing in the world, but it's gets some veg in, which is something her digestion desperately needs on occasion!

The other thing I do is make muffins with added extras of fruit and veg. I'll take a recipe which already contains some fruit or veg, and throw in some more, just for kicks!
Right now Sophia is sleeping, and I threw together some muffins which are reasonably low in sugar, almost fat free, contain wholemeal flour and oats and had... pear&apple puree (used instead of oil), a whole apple, a whole carrot, a whole banana, half a courgette and some sultanas. I just hope they pass the Sophia test later on!

Baby/Toddler self feeding recipes

Jaiden is getting to the stage where he'd rather feed himself that be fed. (Well, unless you're feeding him from your bowl!)
Anyway, I've been on the search for recipes for things I can make ahead, stick in the freezer, and just grab and go, that would give him a variety of things to eat and not always be having the same thing.

I've not (at the time of writing on the 31st Dec) tried any of these yet, but they're on the to-do list, and I'll give some feedback when I have :)

Cheese twists (pastry)

Individual mac & cheese

Mini meatloaf

Veggie Pancakes 

A healthy muffin recipe where you can chose your add-ins 

Weelicious - a site where I found the pancake recipe, that I will pursue further.

Baking fun

Things I have baked recently and found they are good....

Apple muffins. I did a half batch, since that was how much apple I had. I put in half the quanity of sugar and used wholemeal flour. I still made 19 muffins in my silicone cupcake cases, so I suspect the original recipe made big ones. I cooked them for 25 minutes.

Chocolate and zucchini muffins. Ignoring the adaptations they'd made for them to be gluten free, I used a cup of white flour and a cup of wholemeal. I used only half the choc chips that the recipe suggested. I cooked them for 20 minutes, and we made about 25 from the batter.

Chocolate pumpkin and banana muffins

1 and 1/2 cups wholemeal flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon cocoa
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
2 mashed bananas
1/3 cup applesauce
1/3 cup milk (we used skimmed)

Mix flour, baking powder, cocoa and sugar in a bowl.
Mix all the other ingredients in another bowl.
Mix wet and dry ingredients together.
Spoon into mini muffin cases and bake at 180C/350F/gas mark 4 for 25 minutes until they stop singing!
Cool on a cooling rack. Consume.

I used up my self-raising flour in the last recipe, so this time we just used plain.

Again, the applesauce is a replacement for oil and could be replaced back again!

Since the last recipe wasn't that sweet, I decided to experiment with a quarter cup of sugar in this recipe. I expect it could be substituted for honey, although you make need to adjust other liquid levels.

Ok, so they're done. They're slightly odd in that they've puffed up and the outside is crispy, and the inside is a bit gooey on some of them. The ones we've tried we've just sort of squished flat in order to eat them.

Soph thought they were delicious, mind you she would have eaten all the mixture if I'd let her!

Overall, they're quite banana-y and chocolate-y and pretty yummy really. And they've gotta be pretty healthy too!

Courgette, Carrot and Sultana Muffins

1 (generous) cup of self raising wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup grated carrot
1/3 cup grated courgette
1/4 cup sultanas
1 egg
1/2 cup applesauce (I used home cooked from scratch)
1/2 cup milk (I used skimmed)

Mix together dry ingredients (inc carrot, courgette and sultanas)
Mix together wet ingredients
Mix wet and dry together
Spoon into mini muffin tins or cases (we used mini muffin silicone cases)
Cook at 180C/350F/gas mark 4 for about 20 minutes. (Carefully) listen to see if they are still making noise, cook a little longer until they're quiet, or test with a skewer or toothpick and cook until it comes out clean. We made 28 mini muffins

As you can see, there's no fat and no sugar, with the applesauce replacing them both. Some of these turned out a little bit dough-y in the middle, think I needed to cook them just a little bit more. They weren't very sweet at all. I think a couple of tablespoons of sugar or honey would probably make them more appealing.

I think they'd be better cooked slightly longer, and with a little more sweetener.

Sophia says she doesn't like the carrot ones, but I pointed out a couple that I said didn't have carrot and she wolfed them down. Ok, so that was a lie, but I was pretty sure it was her hatrid of carrot that was colouring her judgement! While I've written this I'm pretty sure she's had at least one more (hence my reason for doing mini ones!), so I think they've gone down well.

If you don't have applesauce, I'd suggest perhaps use 1/4 cup of oil and 1/4 cup sugar or honey, less if you're happy with a less sweet version.

I took photos, but will have to add them later

Mega muffin bake up

My sister Hannah shared with me her (or that she'd acquired) recipe for beetroot, sweetcorn and carrot muffins. She absolutely loves them. Sophia loved them for the first 2 that she ate, but after that she said that she absolutely did not want to eat them (thank goodness for the freezer, anyway!)

Anyway, all that inspired me, along with a muffin 'formula' I found in The Tightwad Gazette, to attempt to create some fruit and veg muffins of my own (with the intention that they be healthy ish snacks and would sneak some fruit and veg into my daughter!)

And the day for that grand bake up is TODAY.

I intend to share my recipes, and our reactions to them!