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Surprise Muffins - Another Pantry Friendly Recipe!



Surprise Muffins 
(Easy - Uses Pantry Ingredients)

  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • *Jam/jelly of your choice (optional)
  • *Colored sugars for sprinkling (optional)

Directions:

PREHEAT:  Oven to 350 degrees

COMBINE:  In a mixing bowl all of the dry ingredients. Stir well.

COMBINE:  In a separate dish from the dry ingredients- the egg, oil, and milk.  Stir so egg is thoroughly blended with other wet ingredients.

COMBINE: Wet and dry ingredients and STIR, just until blended.

PLACE: Muffin papers in 12 muffin cups/tin.  (I really prefer papers for these muffins.)

SCOOP:  Approximately one heaping Tablespoon of batter into the bottom of each muffin cup.

NEXT PLACE:  About 1 teaspoon of your favorite jam or jelly on top of that batter.

TOP: With another spoon of muffin batter.

SPRINKLE: With colored sugar, if you want - or not. (I used to make six w/ one jam and six w/ another, with color coordinated sugars to tell them apart.  Little kids just eat this stuff up, trust me LOL.

BAKE @ 350 degrees for approximately 25 minutes or until browning.

COOL:  A few minutes before eating.  Insides may be hot.


Enjoy!

Gina


Back in the day when I had littles around, I used to make these Surprise Muffins a lot!  

It was about the time I had had a car wreck and was unable to work and finances were a little tight that I decided to cast off the prepackaged cereals, pop tarts, toaster strudels, and other pricey/packaged breakfast items and instead dug out a few, basic recipes for breakfast items.  Once I started, I never looked back.  Muffins were a reliable choice at my house.  Customizable recipes like this one were even more reliable!

In an effort to save money and yet offer something we all enjoyed, I sought out recipes that used common ingredients that I was likely to find in my pantry.  Occasionally I made recipes that were heavy on special ingredients, but really I rarely did that.  You can take a basic recipe and tweak it to make a very special dish rather than buying a bunch of expensive one-hit wonder ingredients.

I found this recipe in a treasured Betty Crocker basic cookbook.  I hadn't made this recipe much since my girls both flew the coop but in tough times, the tough get going, right!  I knew making these muffins would be both a little nostalgic and delicious so I went for it. 

Since I lost my treasured cookbook in the fire, I hoped I could find the recipe online.  Success.  It was there.  Here it is!  I made the muffins and they were every bit as delicious as I remembered.  They remind me more of a scone than a muffin (now that I have experienced such things).

For the "surprise" in my muffins back in the day, I used to use apple butter, strawberry jam, grape jelly (Doug's fav), homemade apricot or peach preserves.  Pretty much, whatever I had on hand, I used.  This time, I only had grape jelly on hand and red sugar so that's what I used.  Also, this time I made a few without anything inside and no sugar on top.  I enjoyed them with a little soft butter. So delicious! 

Prepackaged cereals and breakfast items may get harder and harder to find - so having a few, pantry friendly recipes might be something we all want to have in our bags of tricks.

Make these muffins!  I know your family will love them as much as we do!







Stay healthy out there, everyone!

Gina


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