Muffin Mix

I've been on a huge muffin kick lately. I found a recipe from an online friend for zucchini, carrot, raisin muffins (recipe coming at some point). I sent her a note saying I was making them, and she told me that she makes muffins every week for her kids to have for breakfast. I thought it was genius! Especially the next day when all I had to do was throw a muffin, some fruit, and some yogurt on a plate for each of my kids. Voila! breakfast was ready. I don't handle breakfast well. I'm not always caffeinated when my kiddos want to eat, and a lot of times there are fights about what they're going to have. But no one fought the muffins! I mentioned this at one of my bible study groups, and my friend Sarah said she had a recipe for an all-purpose muffin mix, that you just mix up a huge batch and keep it in the pantry or freezer and pull from it as needed and mix in all sorts of things to make different kinds of muffins. Genius!! I copied it down immediately and mixed it up the next day. I just used the last of my mix this morning (well, almost...there's maybe 1/2 a cup left in the container I was storing it in) and figured it was high time to type out the recipe so I didn't always have to look for my scrap of paper on which the recipe is written when I want to make these up. I'll have to mix up some more tomorrow--I don't want to be without my mix!

Sarah's Muffin Mix
Source: My friend Sarah (who runs full marathons!)
Yield: 4 batches of muffins

8 cups flour
3 cups sugar
3 T. baking powder
2 t. salt
2 t. cinnamon
2 t. nutmeg

Combine above ingredients. Store in pantry or freezer up to six months.

For each batch of muffins:

2-3/4 cups muffin mix
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter, melted

Place muffin mix in bowl. Whisk egg, milk, and butter together and stir into dry ingredients. Include whichever mix-ins below (mix any dry ingredients in with mix, wet ingredients or fruit into wet ingredients or at the end). Fill muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake at 400 degrees for 18-21 minutes.

Add-Ins:
Banana: 1 cup mashed bananas
Cranberry Pecan: 1 cup chopped cranberries, 1/2 cup chopped pecans, 3 T. sugar
Cappuccino: 1 cup mini chocolate chips, 2 t. instant coffee granules
Apple Cheese: 1/2 cup shredded apple, 1/2 cup colby jack cheese
Blueberry: 1 cup blueberries
Carrot Raisin: 3/4 cup shredded carrots, 1/3 cup golden raisins

*****

Sorry if the directions for when to mix in what are vague. I didn't copy that part down because it all seemed self-explanatory to me. For most of the varieties I think I'd mix everything in at the end, except the banana I'd mix in with the wet ingredients, the coffee granules I'd mix in with the dry ingredients. I think that's it.

So far I've made blueberry muffins, chocolate chip muffins, and this morning I made banana chocolate chip. I know, I'm fancy. I think the banana chocolate chip have been our favorite so far. I'm dying to try the apple cheese, but my kids ate all the apples I bought last time at the store. I'm also looking forward to the carrot raisin--I LOVE carrot raisin muffins!

I did make a few substitutions to the mix recipe. I used half whole wheat flour and half all-purpose flour. I also cut the sugar down to 2.5 cups. Three cups seemed like a lot (I think I figured it out to be about a tablespoon per muffin if your batch made 12 muffins...mine usually made 18-24 though), and plus the day I went to mix it up I only had 2.5 cups of sugar on hand. I figured I'd try it and see how it turned out. Now I think I'll keep it that way. I had meant to add in some ground flax seed to the mix but forgot when I mixed it up and then kept forgetting each time I make a batch.

This was super, super easy and it's so nice to have on hand! I've even made muffins first thing in the morning when I get up to have for breakfast if we were out, and it wasn't time consuming at all. My kids don't even mind waiting a little longer for breakfast knowing they're going to get a tasty warm muffin out of the deal!

If you make these and try any other variations that you love, leave me a comment and let me know what they were!

Hmnmm...apparently in all the batches of muffins I've made, I haven't taken a picture of any of them. Next time!