Baked Banana Oatmeal Muffin

(Recipe)

At 2 years 8 months old, my little sweetie have a rather small taste for sweets. She loves plain water, fruits, vegetables and grains, but simply super low on soda and added-sugar. We as parent are not particularly limiting her, she just not quite a sweet tooth in her current phase of life.

Here we share her most favorite baking play: baked banana oatmeal muffin (she call it a ‘cake’ though, no matter what, instead of ‘muffin’).

Ingredients:

1 cup quick cooking oats

1 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon himalayan salt

3 mashed banana

3/4 cups of water

No sugar nor syrups whatsoever added, because she like it so (still) at the moment. If it’s for me, I like to add 2 tablespoon of date syrups though.

She mashed the banana,

poured the water,

scooped a forkfull of mashed banana,

transferred to the big bowl,

and eventually tip the bowl full of mashed banana on top of the big bowl.

Oats was one of the most fun sensory play. She took her time transferring it.

She sprinkled the oats on top of the big bowl, letting its flakes to flow through her fingers.

No more oats in her hand,

time to transfer the rest of oats.

She tipped the bowl full of mashed banana on top of the big bowl.

She did the same for the rest ingredients.

Next is to transfer the mixed dough into muffin cups. She still needed some assistance to divide the dough evenly. I simply rotated the fairly full cup and reminded her to fill those that not yet fully filled.

I then brought in a bowl of sliced banana for her muffin’s topping.

Ready to be baked at 180 degree Celcius for 35 minutes in the oven.

Done!

If someone told me a child below 3 could bake a muffin on her own, I wouldn’t believe it. No pretend cooking, it’s real cooking! But then, thinking about it, who wouldn’t like the freedom to pour, mix, and see the magic of baking?

It felt just like yesterday when she used to lick and eat at least half of the batter by hand before made it to the oven. These days the challenge has been to distract her and let the muffins baked properly. She made it to close the oven, only to ask “It’s done?” (meaning is it done?) , took a peek inside, and asked “Open door?” (meaning if she could open the oven) on repeat.

She’s definitely super curious and low on patience. Once the oven made its ‘ding’ sound, she was so excited, took her (our, cough) alligator oven mitts and pulled her muffins out.

Her big grin means everything.

She offered her Lego figurine a bite before finally finished 2 muffins right away in one sitting.

#muffin #banana #todller