Friday, March 27, 2009

favorite thing friday

While we are on the subject of banana muffins ... for as long as I can remember, I have genuinely enjoyed baking with our children.

What? Delusional? Who ME?

And except for those occasions when the recipe only calls for two eggs - and I have three highly willing and able egg crackers - I'm convinced that the children have genuinely enjoyed baking with me.

Sure, it took a little time for me to get past the excessive use of ingredients and slight mess that is inevitably triggered whenever you invite young children in to your "work zone" but I have quickly realized that little kids love to help participate in the cooking process.

And the more you allow your children to help participate, the better they get at helping participating. Or, perhaps the more numb you become to the disaster that is created.

Regardless of the case, we do a lot of baking at our house and at least once a week we will whip up a batch of blueberry, banana or corn muffins.

A few years ago, I realized that whenever I would make up a batch of standard-sized muffins, we always had a lot of waste because the kids could never consume an entire muffin. Yet, everyone always wanted their own muffin and apparently, it is a cardinal sin against humanity to cut a muffin in half.

While out shopping one day, I stumbled upon some mini muffin trays and immediately realized that these miniature sized muffin tins were the perfect solution to my excess-muffin-that-I-would-always-wind-up-eating dilemma. Since the muffins were at least half the size of a standard muffin, they were the perfect size for small children. I would no longer have half eaten muffins laying around that I would feel obligated to eat. So not only was I managing our muffin resources better, I had found a simple cure to my rapidly expanding muffin-top!

We have two of these pans, which hold 24 mini muffins, each. Of course it depends on how large (or small) you make your muffins, but two pans (or one pan that is washed and reused) will typically works out to approximately one batch of batter.
Although they are marketed as nonstick, I still give them a quick pass with a nonstick spray. I actually have looked for mini muffin liners and had never been able to find any - until today when I spotted some on Amazon and have added them to my store.

Mini muffins. We love them.

Not only are they the perfect size for children, they are just right for adults (particularly those who are in denial about a marathon they are due to run in less than eight weeks), who find it helps to cope when they eat little cupcakes by the hand full.

14 comments:

  1. My almost 4yr old and I love baking mini muffins too. We get mini liners at the $1 store....we are in Canada though, have you checked out US $ stores. We get coloured and sometimes patterned ones too.
    Happy baking
    Sarah

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  2. I *so* agree with your favorite thing! And man I could use helpers like yours! :- ) These tins are great!! Another great use for them is to put regular store-bought chocolate chip cookie dough in them and cook as usual. Upon taking them out of the oven, pop a peanut butter cup in each one and put the whole tray in the freezer for about 15 minutes (to stop the messy melting).

    BEST. COOKIES. EVER.

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  3. Jen, I use mini cupcake cups all the time. I get them online at the Confectionery House. They have baking cups of every size! Cute stuff too!

    https://www.confectioneryhouse.com/home.php

    XOXO AM

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  4. I love our mini-muffin pan...almost as much as I love our cookie scoop. And when they come together? Awesome. The cookie scoop is the perfect size--one scoop fills a mini-muffin cup up exactly 2/3 of the way. The kids love to scoop, and the squeezy-release mechanism is great for strengthening those hand muscles that kids need for writing and cutting with scissors.

    Thanks for sharing!

    p.s. you might remind your readers that *anything* they buy after clicking through to Amazon from your store or site gives you the commission. Flat screen TV? You get 6%. Books? 6%. Even things you didn't recommend. You're my new go-to click-through :)

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  5. Yep! When we stayed at your house and ate some delish mini muffins, I got home and purchased a mini muffin pan the next day! We have mini muffins ALL the time! Can't live without item, for sure!

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  6. Oh, the mini-muffin pan is exactly what I need! My little guy loves banana muffins and a mini-muffin pan is perfect. I will certainly be checking it out on amazon!

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  7. I LOVE mini muffins!! I don't think I've ever had a problem finding mini muffin liners though. I have some now, but I can't remember where I bought them. It had to have been either at Target, WalMart, Michaels, JoAnns, Albertsons, Vons or Party City.

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  8. They cancelled the marathon that was to be today in town. I thought of you:) People were upset and I was thinking how happy I would be if that happen to me:)

    Hmmmmm muffins sound good!

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  9. I use the mini muffin pans to make quick crustless mini quiche! They make a great appetizer for a brunch, Easter, etc!

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  10. I usually find my mini muffin liners when there is a holiday. Wherever your store keeps the holiday baking stuff, there are usually mini liners with the regular size one.

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  11. That's the way I always communicated with our kids. They all remember the cooking and fudge making on cold winter days. Then we cleaned up had more conversations and went to the mall.

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  12. Adorable picture of Henry guarding the muffins. Mini muffin pans are a terrific idea I'd never thought of them before but what a great idea to have a healthy little muffin to go with (or be) breakfast.

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  13. Jen,

    I buy them all the time at Wal-Mart! In fact we made little "pupcakes" yesterday!

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  14. Wilton makes mini muffin liners, I saw them at Target last night. I know JoAnn Fabrics, Michaels & AC Moore also carry Wilton products.

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