Baking with children: Monkey Muffins

This Summer I've been volunteering at my local library, helping out with the Creepy House Summer Reading Challenge. One of the perks of helping out in the children's section of the library is I get to see loads & loads of lovely books for young readers. Ever on the look-out for things to occupy my daughter through the Summer holidays, I gravitated towards the non-fiction section and in particular the cookery books. I love an activity where you can eat the end results! I spotted The Baking Book by Jane Bull and thought we'd give it a whirl.

It's packed with yummy recipes and great illustrations. My three year old daughter just loved flicking through the book again and again looking at the bright photos and lovely food. We decided on making Monkey Bread, but we chose to make the muffin versions rather that the loaf. Apart from making chocolate rice crispie cakes, this was our first attempt at 'proper' baking...we put on aprons and everything! Thanks to 'I can cook' on Ceebies, my daughter is taking more interest in how food is prepared and likes to get stuck in. Once we'd sung a loud rendition of the 'wash your hands' song...altogether now "roll up your sleeves, give your hands a wash, with slippy dippy soap, splish slapsh splosh"...we started on the Monkey Muffins.
We measured flour and butter and made it into crumbly breadcrumbs

Then we added sugar and sultanas and gave it a good mix...

Then we cracked some eggs, which require lots and lots of concentration..

Now the fun bit, whisking the eggs...

After adding the eggs and some honey to the dry ingredients, we got to mush some bananas up..

Everything had a last big stir...

Then we got our muffin cases and spooned the sweet-smelling mixture out...


The muffins went in the oven for 15 minutes. Once they were cool enough we scoffed one each. They were delicious, a resounding success! They last for about a week in an airtight container...except ours were eaten before the week was up!