Banana and Strawberry Muffins

Over the last few months I've realised that I haven't baked any special treats for the kid's lunches, so yesterday I jumped into the kitchen to make some yummy muffins for the kid's lunch boxes. I like my time in the kitchen as it's relaxing and I get to escape what's going on in the house. However, as I made the muffins before the kid's morning nap I had three eager and willing helpers standing on their chairs watching me like hawks. I allowed them to help get some of the ingredients out of the pantry, throw the egg shells and carton in the rubbish bin and lastly I let them do the hardest job lick the beaters and spoon. They licked them so clean that it didn't even look like I'd used them to do any cooking.

Banana and Strawberry Muffins

Ingredients

150g softened butter

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

¾ cup castor sugar

2 banana's peeled
100g strawberries, cut into quarters
2 eggs
1½ cups plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
¾ cup milk

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180°C and prepare muffin tin with patty liners.

2. Cream butter, vanilla and sugar until light and fluffy.

3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

4. Add banana's and strawberries, mix well.

5. Sift flour and baking powder together. Fold into creamed mixture.

6. Add sufficient milk to give a soft dropping consistency (you want to be able to spoon the mixture into your pan easily).

7. Spoon enough mixture into your liners so that they are three quarters filled.

8. Bake for 20-25 minutes making sure that they are cooked in the centre. Leave in tray for 10 minutes before placing them on a wire rack.

9. When cool decorate with icing.

I iced a few of these for Mr Opoes but I left the muffins plain for the children because when packing them into lunch boxes the plastic wrap tends to remove the icing making it messy to eat. I prefer mine plain with a little butter however I don't get many opportunities to eat them because the other hungry monkey's eat them before I get a chance. The kids love these so much I might get into the kitchen over the weekend and do more baking.

Megan