You scoop, I squash

Adventures with baking with a 3 year old.  I've been baking for as far back as I can remember.  I have fond memories of baking cookies, humantash, and granola with my grandmother.  Now I do the same with my boys.  I always found cooking fun and relaxing; by osmosis they do too.  Because they have cooked with me since their Baby Bjorn days, they know most of the ingredients to many of our recipes.  Mudge is continuously looking for a reason to use oil, salt, sugar and flour.  Boog enjoys measuring.

Today it was Mudge's turn for the epicurean adventure: Muffins
We adapted my mother's "Vava Muffins" to fit our morning school routine to ensure a decent breakfast before hitting the road.

Preheat oven to 350

• Cream 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup butter, 2 eggs, 2 tsp vanilla, 2 bananas

• In another bowl add 2 cups whole wheat flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp cinnamon

• Gently add dry ingredients to the wet. Once incorporated, add 1 cup chocolate chips (I prefer the mini chips) and 1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts

• Using a 1 ounce cookie scoop, I scooped, and Mudge "squashed" the batter into lined mini muffin tins. Trust me, use the paper liners. It saves me tons of clean up time.

• Bake 18-21 minutes depending on your oven.  Makes approximately 48 mini muffins.

I freeze them, but usually they don't last that long :)

Besides my KitchenAid, the cookie scoop is probably one of my favorite tools in the kitchen.  Not only does it make perfect little ice cream scoops for those itty bitty cones, it comes in handy for the mini muffins as well as perfectly doling out the ultimate cookie.  I had a plastic one, that broke.  So I found a stainless steel model, at Stop and Shop for less than ten bucks.