Muffins and Learning

Did you know that making muffins incorporates alot of schooling?

Reading, math (if you double the recipe), following directions, chemistry and in our case....also art!  :)     yes, that's an angry bird you see drawn in our muffin mix.

He attempted to do so in the liquid portion as well, that didn't work out quite and well but certainly made the liquid squeal as it was being poured in with the dry ingredients.

Banana Wheat Muffins, Directions

FIRST preheat oven to 400.   Child can do this part easily.

In a bowl mix

1 cup mashed bananas (about two large)
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter, melted  (didn't know this could be so much fun for a lad to do.   He had a hoot cutting it up and stirring it ah!!!  I'm melting, I"m melting)
1 tbsp molasses (we didn't have molasses so used honey)    Gave us a chance to talk about substitutions and how they can be made, even how Jesus died in our place (he substituted himself for us) and it's all good. 

Reserve this.  (explain what that means to a child if they don't know).  Practice spelling it in the mixture to if you'd like.   Really...it's fun!  :)

In a different bowl Mix
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup wheat flour (we might have accidentally used multi-grain ... it works too)
1/2 cup wheat bran (we might have used oat bran ... it obviously worked as well)
1 tbsp baking powder (this is what we use in making volcanos right mom?  So why don't the muffins explode in the oven?  - excellent science lesson right there)
1/4 tsp cinnamon (according to the lad, cinnamon tastes horrible on it own)
1/4 tsp salt

OPTIONAL ingridents (we chose NOT to add these)
1/2 nuts of your choice added into the dry mixture.
12 banana chips (these would be placed on the top of the muffin just before baking)

This recipe makes 12 muffins.

I would highly recommend if your child is younger, unskilled or nervous that YOU place the muffins in the oven.   It's just a safety thing.  The lad will bring the trays to the oven, but he'll stand back to let me place them in.

We learned that our oven has a hot spot as 8 of our muffins turned out dark and the rest turned out just fine. Two of them got immediately eaten anyways, we just pulled off the black stuff.

As you can see we made a double batch.  The muffins turned out quite nice and have been being enjoyed by all.    We're freezing a few for our yard sale later this spring.  The lad wants to make some money selling things and this is good work on his part.  :)  (and excellent schooling).

Would it be quicker for me to do them on my own?   For sure, but it's a whole lot more fun to do them with a lad and it's good schooling too.  :)