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Writer's picture52Steps

25Baby: Hide fruit + veg + oats in snack-sized muffins for toddlers (18 months+).


- Makes 20 snack-sized muffins – Ready in 1.5 hours (including cooling time) –

Gather together…

2 heaped cups (175g) rolled oats for blitzing to oat 'flour' (you'll need extra oats too, for later in the recipe, but keep them separate).

¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda, sieved (to avoid unpleasant clumps).

½ tsp ground mixed spice.

1 tsp Cinnamon.

2 medium carrots, topped and tailed and roughly quartered.

1 eating apple, de-cored and roughly quartered (don't cut up the apple until just before using or it will start to brown in the air).

1/2 cup (60g) dark soft brown sugar (when using brown sugar, to be plastic free I use 'Billington's Demerara Cubes' which I crush up, with a potato masher in a high sided jug, into dry granules before using in the recipe. These sugar cubes come in 100% plastic free packaging but they MUST be stored in an air tight container once the box comes home from the supermarket. Asda and Morrisons both sell them).

1 tbsp honey.

1/3 cup (50g) sultanas.

1 cup (75g) rolled oats (these won't be blitzed, they will remain whole).

1/2 cup (125ml) sunflower / rapeseed oil.

2 medium eggs (slightly beaten).


Get cooking…

1. Set out 20 cupcake cases in baking tins, ideally reusable silicone cupcake baking cases. These muffins are snack sized - yet I make them in 'normal' sized cupcake cases, I just don't overfill them (they hardly rise anyway).

2. Put the 2 (heaped) cups of rolled oats into a food processor and blitz (for up to 1 minute) until flour-like.

3. Tip the oat 'flour' into a medium-large mixing bowl - DON'T wash out the food processor as you'll use it again for the carrots and apple.

4. Sieve in the 1/4 tsp of bi-carb and the spices (1/2 tsp of mixed spice and 1 tsp of Cinnamon). Stir to combine with the oat flour.

5. Pre-heat the oven to 180 C (160 C fan) or Gas 4.

6. Roughly quarter the 2 carrots and blitz them in the food processor for 30 seconds (long enough to chop finely but not too long or it will turn to mush), tip the gratings into the medium-large bowl (which the oat flour is already in).

7. Chop the apple into quarters, remove the core and blitz for 20 seconds ONLY in the food processor (be careful as it will turn to runny mush and make the cake soggy if you over-blitz) and add the apple to the medium-large bowl. Now you can wash the food processor as you've finished with it - the carrot juice will stain it slightly orange if you leave it unrinsed.

8. Add the 1/2 cup (60g) of dark soft brown sugar and the 1 tbsp of honey to the mixing bowl.

9. Tip in the 1/3 cup of sultanas and the 1 cup of rolled oats.

10. Give the ingredients in the mixing bowl a good stir with a wooden spoon, for up to 1 minute.

11. Next add the 1/2 cup of sunflower / rapeseed oil and the 2 slightly-beaten eggs. Stir well until just combined (so there are no dry patches).

12. Spoon the mixture into the 20 cake cases (roughly half filling each) and bake for 40 minutes.

13. Allow the muffins to cool in the cases in the tins slightly, for 5 min.

14. Then cool the muffins on a wire rack (in or out of the cases, you decide) for 15 minutes before serving to a toddler.


Adapted from a 'Best-ever Carrot Cake' recipe in a Prima magazine from circa 2008. The grown-up Carrot Cake version can be found here.


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