Jessy Bakes

When it’s a muffin!

The first think I thought of when I woke up this morning was… ok, truthfully the first think I thought of was this ker-aaaazy dream I had last night!  The SECOND think I thought of though was what to make the baby for breakfast.  I like to cook her breakfast when I can (mostly because she loves stuff like cheesy eggs or french toast AND it’s easier to sneak in the healthy stuff and make cheesy PEASy eggs or whole wheat french toast with yogurt to dip). So, when it comes to waffles and pancakes it’s all about fruit for us.  Put some berries in there and I’m happy, she’s happy…HE’s happy because because we’re happy…you know the drill.  The downside to waffles and pancakes is the prep and cooking.  I try to get them just right.  Then, I put on the butter and syrup and cut into pieces to cool a bit.  All the while the little one is getting better at flinging her sippy cup across the kitchen to make sure I know she’s WAITING!  If she knew to do a little foot tap or finger drumming, she would.

So, even though I wanted to make pancakes, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go through the fuss.  Well, Bakerella recently posted her recipe for Mini Maple Pancakes.  Looked SO good.  I could take a little more time mixing stuff together and then pop them in the oven to get done on their own while I entertain my toddler.  Plus there was a perfectly good bunch of blueberries trying not to get frost bite in my freezer.  Perfect!  I made a couple of small tweeks to her recipe and beep beep.  Breakfast time!

Blueberry Maple Mini Panuffins ~makes about 18~

1/2 c. all purpose flour

1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 Tbl. sugar

1Tbl. light brown sugar

2/3 c. buttermilk (I almost never use buttermilk, so I keep the powdered stuff on hand instead.  The equivalent would be 2- 1/2 Tbl powder with dry ingredients and 2/3c. water with the wet.)

1 egg

2 Tbl pure maple syrup (using the real stuff really makes a difference guys!  SO yummy!)

2 Tbl. butter, melted

desired amount of blueberries.  I used about 2 handfulls.

*PREHEAT OVEN 350 DEGREES*

*Grease mini muffin tin.  My butter baking spray didn’t do the best job… yes I promise I was generous! So, I took a paper towel and used it to pinch off and squish a little butter and used that to grease the dish the second time around.  Much better. *

1. In a medium-sized bowl use a whisk to combine flours, powder, soda, salt and sugars (and powdered buttermilk-if using).

2. In a separate bowl stir together buttermilk (or water if using the powdered milk), egg, syrup and butter until just combined.

3. Add wet ingredient to dry ingredients and stir until combined.

4. Toss in berries and mix until evenly distributed.

5. Bake 8-9 minutes. Or if you fill the cups almost full and use frozen blueberries (like I did) plan on more like 10-12

Bakerella mentioned using a toothpick around the edges to help the muffins escape the tin a bit better.  Works!

6. Serve with butter and syrup.  Mmmmm…

Like I said, it’s all about fruit around here in the morning (well, except for the odd nutella toast… everyone does that right?       right???):

Panuffins and yogurt for the little one:

Mom likes ‘em straight up:

A new breakfast tradition has been born.  Thanks Bakerella!  Enjoy everyone!

There was a  Strawberry Muffin  recipe on the inside of my Stonyfield Farm yogurt container’s foil seal.  Their website just calls them strawberry muffins, but the name on the foil is something like “Melt in Your Mouth Strawberry Muffins.”  Sounds great right?  I didn’t have any strawberries.  Some really really ripe (read black!) bananas had been whispering to me from my kitchen counter though.  The bananas were to the point where every time I walked into the kitchen I could immediately smell them.  So, I took the mush that used to be two well-intentioned-destined-for-healthy-smoothies bananas and a handful white chocolate chips (which were leftover from making something similar to these babies: Bakerella’s Kitty’s)  and tossed them into the muffin recipe instead.  I lined mini muffin tins and made teeny White Chocolate Banana Muffins.  Mmmm…  After freezing the leftovers I swear they taste even better nuked for 15 seconds out of the freezer.