Kid sized food: mini blueberry muffins…healthified

There are some foods that just go together, right? Peanut butter and jelly. Macaroni and cheese. Well, in our house, one of those perfect combinations is yogurt and muffins. I’m not sure how it started, but several times a week, Little Man asks for yogurt and a muffin to be his morning snack. Needless to say, we’ve gone through a lot of muffins over the last couple of years.

So today I’m continuing my “kid sized food” series with these awesome mini blueberry muffins.

One afternoon a few weeks ago, when Little Man asked to make muffins and I had some blueberries on hand, I found this recipe for Skinny Blueberry Muffins over at Averie Cooks. As an experiment, I decided to tweak the recipe a bit and try making them into mini-muffins. The result was awesome!

Little Brother usually has a bad habit of smashing his muffins more than eating them, but he gobbled up these muffins and asked for more! Mom for the win!

The best part, these muffins have lots of healthy things in them, like ground flaxseed (full of Omega-3, lignans, and fiber), coconut oil, and blueberries. Hooray for a snack I feel good about feeding my boys! Try them out and let me know what you think!

Mini Blueberry Muffins

Note: You could totally make these as regular size muffins if you don’t have a mini muffin tin. In fact, often I’ll double the recipe and do half mini and half regular. Just make sure you cook the full size ones longer (about 20 minutes total). Also, muffins freeze wonderfully! I usually make big batches, keep out enough for us to eat for a few days and put the rest in the freezer in gallon freezer bags. Then, when we want to eat them for snack time, I pull a few out and pop them in the microwave for 30 seconds or so. Voila!

YIELD: 24 mini muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup ground flax seed (if you don’t have flaxseed, you can just add an extra 1/4 c. flour)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup melted coconut oil (or regular vegetable oil)
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup fresh blueberries tossed in 2 tablespoons flour (to prevent all the blueberries from sinking to the bottom)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease mini muffin tin.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, ground flax seed, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. In another bowl, combine egg, sugar, milk, coconut oil, applesauce, and vanilla. Mix until smooth.
4. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, and use a rubber scraper to gently combine until no dry spots remain. Do not overmix.
5. Toss blueberries with 2 Tablespoons of flour, then fold into the muffin mixture.
6. Fill muffin cups 3/4 full, and place pan in oven. Reduce temperature to 375 degrees. This initial burst of high temperature is what gives muffins their ideal high-domed top (I just learned that!).
7. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until lightly browned around the edges and toothpick inserted comes out clean.
8. Let the pan cool for 10 minutes, then run a knife around the edges of the muffin cups to loosen muffins and remove to a wire rack to cool completely. ENJOY!

Source: Adapted from Averie Cooks. I added and substituted several ingredients, miniaturized the muffins, and adjusted cook time accordingly.

Want more kid-sized food? Try these…

Mini egg frittatas

Mini German puff pancakes

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