Monkey Muffins

Sorry I haven't been posting so much recently. During the heat wave we've been experiencing recently, we have been spending a lot of time swimming and playing, so when we have been cooking and baking (which of course we have been doing!), I just haven't been documenting it as well as usual. But I promise to get back to it.

So, starting on that promise, here we go!

Seeing as little miss has been getting more actively involved in the kitchen, I have been looking for some new, fun recipes to try with her. When I first saw a listing for monkey muffins, I automatically thought that it was going to be a muffin-version of monkey bread, but I checked out the recipe anyway. I was surprised to find that this was actually a recipe for banana muffins! Since we almost always have bananas in the house, we are always looking for recipes to use them up when they start getting freckled, so I bookmarked this one to use the next time we had a couple extra bananas. And today was that day!

When I told little miss that we were going to make monkey muffins, the first thing she asked me (with a sneaky glint in her eyes, I might add) was whether they are made with monkey paws and tails. She then proceeded to laugh as though this was the best joke she'd ever heard. And, to be honest, it was pretty funny. Then I asked her what monkeys like to eat, and she figured out that these were banana muffins.

The first step was to mash the bananas, which little miss was more than happy to help with. After a few minutes, she told me that her hands were tired, but when I offered to take over, her hands suddenly woke up, so she wound up doing most of the work herself, which gave me the time to get everything else we needed ready.

The next step was to combine the dry ingredients together, another task that little miss wanted to handle herself. So while she whisked, I creamed together the butter and sugar. Little miss then joined me at the mixer as we finished up adding the rest of the ingredients and finishing the batter. The only change I made to the recipe as it is written is that I used plain yogurt in place of the sour cream that is listed.

When it was time to fill the muffin tins, little miss once again volunteered to help. Man, a mom could get used to this! (You know, assuming you are prepared for a little extra cleaning when you're done, but really, that is a small price to pay.) She is definitely getting better at getting the batter into the cups of the tin, and, believe it or not, the biggest mess during this step was made by me. Oops!

When the muffins went into the oven, little miss read books while I did the dishes. Unlike most muffins that I have made, they needed to bake for the longer end of the recommended baking time, rather than cooking faster, but they smelled super yummy as they finished up, so it was worth the wait.

So how were they? Pretty darn tasty! They made a tummy dessert, and I already know that they will make an super fun weekend breakfast tomorrow. I have to say, little miss is turning into one heck of a baker.