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