Make-Ahead Breakfast Favourite
Breakfast Muffins
Breakfast muffins in our house are like gold dust – one minute they’re there, the next….. gone! Any time my 7 year old can have ‘cake’ for breakfast she sees is as a massive win, but if that ‘cake’ is free from refined sugar, made with oats & contain fruit – it’s a win for me too!
I’ve been making these muffins on repeat for weeks now and I LOVE them! These save my sanity on busy mornings, or sometimes I sub a couple of these in Mia’s lunchbox when she’s fed up of sandwiches. I’ll pop the recipe & instructions below but if you would prefer to watch how I made them, and get some inspiration for other quick make-ahead breakfasts, then make sure you click on the YouTube video below!
The only snag with these muffins is that you do need to wait a while when they come out of the oven before trying them – They will taste great but won’t be very easy to take out of the paper casing. However, once they’ve had chance to fully cool down, they’ll easily come out of the paper case.
RECIPE
Makes 12 breakfast muffins. Will keep for 2-3 days at ambient in an air tight container. Freeze for longer & defrost overnight or for 2-4 hours.
Ingredients:
- 140ml milk
- 100g oats
- 100g greek yoghurt
- 115g butter
- 200g plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 overripe banana, mashed
- 100g honey
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 115g blueberries
- 60g chocolate chips (optional)
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 215C. To a jug, add the milk, oats & greek yoghurt. Stir and set aside.
- Meanwhile, melt the butter either in the microwave in short bursts or over a medium-low heat in a pan. Once melted, set aside to cool slightly.
- In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients together; flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda and cinnamon.
- In another bowl, mash the banana and add the rest of the wet ingredients; honey, egg & vanilla extract. Stir and add to the dry ingredients with the oat mixture & the melted butter. Add in the blueberries and chocolate chips and stir until just combined. Do not be tempted to over-mix.
- Spoon the mixture into 12 muffin cases and sprinkle with oats, if you like.
- Bake the muffins at 215C for 5 minutes, then turn down the heat to 180C and bake for a further 16-17 minutes, until the muffins are cooked. Do not remove the muffins from the oven when turning down the heat.
- Once cooked, leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then pop them onto a rack to fully cool. These are best eaten once fully cooled, or the next day!
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There’s no doubt that there are so many exciting things to think about when you begin the weaning journey with your little one like choosing a high chair, shopping for snazzy bibs, debating which cup and cutlery is best and deciding what amazing tastes to expose your baby to first... but it’s important not to forget that amongst all of this, any food you serve needs to be safe! Babies and young children don’t have the same immune system as us adults (or even older children) so we need to make sure we’re extra careful with their little tummies! It is estimated that there are 2.4million cases of food borne illness in the UK every year but it’s not just restaurants that can give you food poisoning – You can also make yourself (or your family) ill whilst cooking at home too. The good news is that there are so many things you can do whilst preparing food to prevent this…. Keep it Clean When preparing food for your little one, keeping clean is so important! In reality, this doesn’t mean having a ‘spotless’ kitchen but instead, a clean environment where you prepare food, with clean hands using clean equipment! Here’s some top tips to help you organise your kitchen to help you safely prepare meals for your baby and the rest of the family…. Wash your hands – Always wash your hands thoroughly before preparing any food, and after handling raw meat Clean work surfaces - Disinfect food preparation surfaces using a clean dishcloth before starting any food preparation. If you can, use a paper towel squirted with anti-bacterial spray to clean surfaces after preparing raw meat and poultry as this will help make sure that you don’t pick up food poisoning germs and spread them around the kitchen! Clean utensils – Make sure equipment is clean before you start using it and if you can, opt for colour coded equipment to reduce the risk of cross contamination between raw and ready to eat foods. Never prepare ready to eat food such as salad on a board that was previously used to prepare raw meat. Wash fruit and Veg – They might be low risk foods, but bacteria can also be found on fruit and veggies too so don’t forget to wash these thoroughly under cold running water before serving to baby. If you’re using frozen veggies in baby’s food, make sure that these are cooked before serving to your baby according to the back of pack information. Don’t be tempted to wash raw chicken! Washing your chicken will not ‘wash off’ the bacteria (only cooking will make it safe to eat!). If you wash chicken, you are instead more likely to cause food poisoning by inadvertently spreading more bacteria around the kitchen. Cooking Cooking veggies by steaming/ boiling or roasting is pretty straightforward, but those first tastes don’t last for long and you’ll soon be branching out to more exciting foods for your baby to try, many of which may include meat or fish. Regardless of how you serve meat to your little one, it’s important to make sure that it is thoroughly cooked. Remember - Just because it’s cooked on the outside, doesn’t mean it is cooked on the inside! Here’s how you can check that meat is safe to eat… Use a food probe – Checking the temperature of the thickest part of meat is the most accurate way (and the way I would recommend) to check food is cooked, whilst also making sure it is not overcooked! If using a probe, make sure the probe is clean and the meat has a core temperature of 75C for at least 30 seconds. Cut into the thickest part of the meat to make sure there is no pink meat visible The meat must be steaming hot throughout Meat juices run clear
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