Banana Pumpkin Bread Muffins with Cranberries

E loves to help me. She loves to help clean, do dishes, do laundry, and cook. It's awesome, and I hope it stays that way, but sometimes it's hard to find ways for her to actually help. When it comes to cooking/baking, she is now my official stir-er. I measure the ingredients, she dumps them in and whisks them together. It's a pretty great system, and I hope it instills in her a love for cooking. I didn't learn much growing up, and am mostly self-taught. Knowing that she will at least have a foundation for cooking and baking for herself, and an appreciation of food and ingredients, makes me all kinds of warm and fuzzy inside (I think it's a mom thing). Bonus: when she's old enough, it'll be a great way to teach her fractions! I love my little sous chef.

Yesterday, she and I made these muffins. The original recipe is for a loaf of bread, but muffins are just so much easier to grab in the morning, instead of having to slice off a piece. I have one muffin tin, and one cupcake tin, and the batter was enough to fill both.

Ingredients

2 ripe bananas, mashed

2 eggs

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 1/3 cups canned pumpkin puree

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp ground cinnamon

3/4 cup craisins (other options: raisins or chocolate chips)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare your muffin pans (I used cupcake liners for the cupcake tin, and baking spray on the muffin tin).

2. In a large bowl, stir together the mashed banana, eggs, oil, pumpkin, honey, sugar, and brown sugar. (Fun fact: after she mashed the bananas, E informed me that they weren't bananas any more, they were soup.)

3. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pie spice and cinnamon in a medium bowl, and whisk together. 

4. Whisk the flour mixture into the banana mixture until just combined. Fold in the craisins. Spoon batter into prepared pans.

how full I filled my tins, for reference

5. Bake for 25 minutes for cupcake-sized muffins, and 35 minutes for muffin-sized muffins (ha), or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Move pans to cooling racks for about 10 minutes, then remove muffins from pans and complete cooling. 

mini-muffins

regular muffins

These are really moist, flavorful, and perfect for breakfast as they are not too sweet. Plus I hear bananas and pumpkin are good for energy! 

PS: I am creating a new label for the recipes E helps me with called "little helper recipes" so that, if anyone is interested, you can find recipes that are easy to do with your preschooler. I hope you find it helpful!

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Homemade S'mores Poptarts

I love Poptarts. My favorite is the s'mores flavor, because who doesn't love an excuse to eat chocolate for breakfast? But I wanted to try and make my own at home, because why not? So here you go:

Ingredients

1 pkg (2 sheets) puff pastry (makes 6)

6 large marshmallows

1 1/2 Hershey's chocolate bars

graham crackers

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Lay out your puff pastry sheets (I recommend laying down a little bit of flour first- I didn't and they stuck a little bit). Cut each sheet into sixths. On half the rectangles, lay down 1/4 of a Hershey bar (3 little rectangles), a marshmallow split in half, and crumble a little graham cracker on top.

2. Lay the other half of the puff pastry rectangles on top of the ones that have the s'mores filling. Pinch the edges together with a fork. Move your poptarts to a baking sheet with parchment paper. Bake for approximately 15 minutes, or until pastry turns golden brown and flaky.

As you can see, one of my poptarts oozed some marshmallow because I didn't seal it well enough, but it didn't affect the taste at all, so it's not a big deal if this happens to you. 

These are a million times better than regular s'mores Poptarts. They're so warm and flaky and gooey, it's hard to believe they're an acceptable breakfast food. Maybe at this point they aren't. But that didn't stop me from eating them from breakfast. Nope.