Fun in the kitchen

My oldest daughter has been in the kitchen cooking up messes since she was little over 2. Once she started staying with my mom while I'm away, she had her spot at the counter mixing away. As I've said before, I owe a lot of my cooking habits to my mother. She had me up on a step stool early making Sesame Street Cookie Monster Sugar cookies and watching her whip up dinners from scratch. So you definitely can say my daughter is comfortable at the counter reading the ingredients, telling me what to add and what to take out of the mix- oh and of course trying to sneak a taste of the dough.

We had a nice snowy afternoon, perfect for some baking especially since little one was napping and daddy was cleaning. It was time for some creation from the McDonald kitchen. We needed to whip up a good hearty, healthy addition to our smoothies for Sunday morning so muffins it had to be! I put together the main ingredients but my daughter told me what else we needed to add. See if you can pick her special touches.





Wake Me up Muffins
1 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
¼ cup wheat germ
½ cup sugar
½ cup honey (or Agave Nectar)
1 cup carrot, grated
1 apple, cored and diced
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs, beaten
¼ cup canola oil
½ cup raisins or other dried fruit
Heat oven to 375 degrees. Mix first 8 ingredients together and set aside. In a large bowl mix sugar, honey, carrot, pumpkin, vanilla, egg and oil together. Add dry ingredients small batches at a time. Once mixed together, add raisins. Then scoop mixture into muffin pan. Makes 12 large muffins.