Mini Apple Cups

April 9, 2010 Laura

Today was the day. We got the girls together to bake. All our friends groaned at the idea of two preschooler’s cooking together, but we planned and plotted. Easy recipe. Little baking time. Crafts ready as distractions. Ceri and I figured we had our bases covered.

We decided on another healthy snack since you can really never have enough of those: mini apple muffins. As we converted the recipe from grams and ounces to tablespoons and cups (thank God for the computer), we realized the recipe from a British book seemed slim on flour. Were these really going to be muffins?

Mini Apple Cups

Ingredients

1/2 cup of whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
2 tablespoons of rolled oats
1/4 cup of Muscovado sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons of butter, melted
1/2 cup of plain yogurt
1 peeled, cored and diced apple

Method

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees

Blend the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, sugar and rolled oats in one bowl

In another bowl, mix the egg, butter and yogurt. .

Add the chopped apples into the dry ingredients and mix to coat the chunks with the dry blend.

Add the wet ingredients to the apple mix and stir, just to combine.

Fill a muffin tin (sprayed or with paper cups) with the mixture and bake for 12 mins.

Sweet Potato Chronicles

As Ceri and I took turns measuring all the ingredients out for the girls (Scarlett would be in charge of blending and mixing wet ingredients, Esme dry), the other reffed the various squabbles over coloring book pages, who gets what baby and butterfly stickers.

Just as we finished our prep work, Ceri and I noticed that the girls were trying to get out the front door. “Where are you guys going?,” I asked. “I want to ride my bike in the hall,” Scarlett informed us, as she lured Esme along. “Wait! We’re ready for you guys to make your muffins,” explained Ceri. Both girls gave us a blank look and proceeded out the door. “We’ll give you a chocolate egg if you come back and do your muffins,” I yelled.

After the shit show of who gets to hand out the spoons as well as who gets what spoon, the girls (for the record: Esme red spoon, Scarlett pink) work alongside each other shoveling the mix into mini-muffin cups.

As you can see, they are mostly apple with just enough batter to hold them together. It’s what we liked about these little babies – they’re more fruit and less sugary cake. The perfect treat.

During the 12 minute bake time, we rode bikes in the hall.

Unfortunately, the bike ride was also the time the camera was left on and the battery drained. Alas, no final shot to show you how yummy these looked. We settled them in front of Dora paper plates, each with a warm muffin. (They’re not really muffins. We decided they’re baked apple cups.) They both purred, “Yummy”. We felt a shot of relief with the success of our project until Scarlett wondered why Esme got more water than her.