Every weekend, meal planning, preparation, and baking are a part of my family’s routine.
With a son who is severely allergic to many foods, eating out and eating pre-prepared foods just aren’t options in my home. Our weekend cooking routine helps our budget and provides some sanity during the week. We’re not home until almost 6 PM every night and are always racing the clock to get dinner on the table before our son gets exhausted and crabby. Baking with my child and husband is easily one of my favorite activities of the weekend. My son (usually) enjoys baking with us and often selects which muffins we are going to make. I’m here to share my top five favorite muffin recipes for baking with your child.
Five Favorite Muffin Recipes to Bake with Your Child
Spinach Muffins
I’ve shared about these muffins once already. These muffins are healthy and easy to make. Win! They hide a ton of spinach and have no refined sugar. Every time I make them, I try to use less coconut sugar. I’m convinced my son would eat them with no coconut sugar. There’s a lot of sweetness from the banana and applesauce already, so someday, I’m going to try it without the added coconut sugar. If you have a big enough blender, these muffins require one dish only, which pushes them up to the top on my list of favorite muffin recipes. I always take the lazy route and fill my blender to the very brim in order to not dirty a mixing bowl, but even if you do mix wet and dry ingredients separately, two dishes really isn’t a bad cleanup either. My son LOVES these muffins. We usually have to cut him off from eating more than three in one sitting. In terms of baking with your child, there are a lot of items to measure together, which I know my son always likes and is a great way to incorporate math literacy in the home.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
I can’t share a favorite muffin recipes post during this season without including one pumpkin recipe. These vegan pumpkin chocolate chip muffins are moist and delicious. We use coconut hemp milk instead of almond milk. My guess is any milk, dairy or non-dairy, will work depending on your dietary needs. As with most things, I cut the maple syrup in this recipe to lessen the sugar some. They’re still delicious! If you’re making this for someone with food allergies, chocolate chip brands to consider are Vermont Nut Free Chocolates, Enjoy Life, or Pascha Chocolate. Your choice depends on the allergies you are contending with, but these brands are free of some major allergens.
Double Chocolate Beet Muffins
In all fairness, I think it is a little bit of a stretch to call these muffins. I’d say they are borderline cupcakes, but man, are they good. We made these for my son’s birthday party this year and they were a huge hit! For that, we did top them with a homemade chocolate frosting, but that’s certainly not a requirement. These fudgy, vegan double chocolate muffins were enjoyed by my son’s preschool class without any frosting during a different birthday celebration. Also, I’ve never roasted beets for this recipe. I am here to tell you plain canned or vacuum sealed beets work just as well as roasted. This is another recipe where baking with your child mainly consists of measuring and slowly mixing all of the ingredients in the blender to spare using a second bowl.
Carrot Zucchini Muffins
If you haven’t figured it out yet, hidden veggie muffins are kinda my thing. My son LOVES muffins. Love, love, loves them. He was an avid vegetable eater as an infant, but three-year-old pickiness is starting to shine through. Muffins are a sure fire way to keep vegetables in his diet. With carrot zucchini muffins, I find you don’t have to have the exact ratio of the two vegetables. More zucchini than carrot? Totally fine! All zucchini or all carrot? That works too! A few things to note with this recipe; we don’t make them gluten-free and just use regular flour instead. Additionally, we use applesauce instead of an egg. I also usually double the recipe, but keep the maple syrup the same as the applesauce adds some sweetness already.
Banana Quinoa Breakfast Bars
OK, these are not muffins but they’re too good to not add to this list. With my son’s list of food allergies, it is hard to find protein-rich breakfast options. I was so excited to find a breakfast recipe that incorporates quinoa, a protein-rich superfood. We use soy butter in ours, but as the recipe says, any nut or seed butter works. The bars are a great way to use up those ripe bananas you inevitably have sitting on your counter, especially as most other ingredients are pantry staples you likely already have. Other than cooking the quinoa on the stove, it’s a very simple and easy recipe for baking with your child. It’s also one I guarantee they’ll enjoy eating handfuls of before it’s baked.
Do any of these favorite muffin recipes make you excited about baking with your child? If you make any, be sure to share your pictures on social media and tag us to let us know what you think!
