Sing the ABC Muffins

Daddy once said that life before Elli was like having black-and-white TV; we had no idea the beautiful view of the world we were missing. What an apt description. Case in point, before Elli, the refrigerator was bare and boring. And now.... (watch this video)

Just hours before filming this video, Elli said her ABCs unprompted, without the music all by herself. She's 2 and she knows her ABCs. Maybe she'll test out of elementary school altogether. In honor of Elli's milestone achievement this week, I sought a recipe that somehow related to the alphabet. Once again, Taste of Home delivered.

ABC Muffins (no, I did not make up that title)

3 eggs

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup applesauce

1/4 cup honey

1 package (18-1/4 oz) yellow cake mix

1 1/2 cups wheat bran

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, oil, applesauce and honey. Combine the dry cake mix, bran and cinnamon; add to egg mixture. Mix just until blended. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until the muffins test done.

Those of you who have read a few of these blog stories before know that I have an adversion to ingredients that are outside my grocery store comfort zone. But Elli was inspiration enough to send me on the adventure to find wheat bran. The whole story would take up a whole post, so here's the nutshell version: searched four aisles (to no avail), called both Grandmas for advice (to no avail), searched for store manager (to no avail), used iPhone to Google "where find wheat bran," found product description and picture online that led me to the jackpot in the "health market" section. Had the package not cost only $2, I would have given up at one Grandma call. All for you, Elli.

I set up sweet girl with a bowl of applesauce in front of her on the counter while I started cracking the eggs in the bowl. She helped me count them as I cracked them open. ABCs and 123s. She will graduate high school by age 10. She then helped me count out three 1/4 cupfuls of oil and pour in the applesauce from the jar. Her favorite part was next: squeezing the bear-shaped jar of honey as we measured out 1/4 cup of the sweet nectur. She tried her best to help me squeeze, but the bear was just too bulky for her little hands. The stream coming out of the bear's head was just the right size, though. She watched the stream of honey pouring out, carefully calculating her move.

Her aim was good, but her thrust was a little too hard, and honey ended up streaking down the page of my cookbook. This is why coated, wipeable pages are so important! Next step was blending it all together with the hand mixer.

"It's going to be a little loud," I warned her. I have to give her fair warning on things that are loud. Much like Mommy, she does not care for loud noises.

Elli marveled at the sight of the ingredients folding into one another. "Oooo, look at dat!" she said. The first time she has ever said that, by the way. Who knows where she picked that up. I looked in the bowl. It looked like liquid sunshine, whose brillance was accentuated even more by the stark white mixing bowl.

"Yeah, that looks pretty," I said. We turned to the dry ingredients. I had bought Pillsbury yellow cake mix for this recipe because not only do I love Pillsbury cake mixes (Funfetti, anyone?) but they were also on sale. Score. I tore open the bag of mix and breathed in the familiar pudding-in-the-mix smell.

"Ahhhh!" I sighed. And so began the game of Smell That. "Smell that, Elli," I said, holding the bag of cake mix close to her.

She leaned over and sniffed. "Mmmm, dat smell dood."

"You bet it does! And we are going to put this cake mix into this smaller bowl." She helped me dump the cake mix. "Now, Elli, smell that." I held the open bag of wheat bran under her nose. She sniffed. Dead silence. "I know, right?" I said. "Not as nice smelling as the cake mix." We measured out the wheat bran and added it to the little bowl. The cinnamon was a nice return to good smells, and Elli insisted on tasting the cinnamon. I sprinkled a little in her bowl of applesauce she had yet to finish.

That made her finish it. Meanwhile, I began mixing the dry and liquid ingredients together. The thick, shapeless, flex-less batter that formed did not instill in me much hope of a moist muffin, but there was only one way to truly found out what this recipe could do. Elli took on the task of lining the muffin pan with paper cups.

Then she ran point on determining which cups to fill and in which sequence. FYI: this batter does not pour so much as drop and plop. If you read the recipe closely it just says "fill" the muffin cups 2/3s full, but it doesn't say how to go about doing this. For me, spoon, scraper, elbow grease.

While the muffins baked, Elli cleaned...without using her tongue this time, thank you very much. She used a wet cloth like Mommy to wipe off the counters. About an hour later, Elli and Daddy shared the first taste of an ABC muffin. Elli's verdict: "That's deedishess!"

What other opinion could you need? She's a preteen college grad, after all.

Things Elli Could Do:

Count eggs and cupfuls

Help pour in ingredients

Expertly detect good smells from not-so-great smells

Drop in paper cup liners

Determine which muffin cups to fill and when

Overall ABC Muffins Ratings (5 being the best):

Elli-friendly cooking: 4

Elli-friendly eating: 5

Simple: 5

Fast: 5

Frugal: 5 (even factoring in cost of energy searching for wheat bran)