Healthy Birthday Blueberry Muffins
I had the opportunity to keep my nieces and nephew overnight recently and somehow cooking is always a part of what we do when they visit. This time we were celebrating my niece Kora’s 5th birthday. When I called her Friday to ask her what she wanted to make for her birthday treats I gave her the choice of cake, cookies or muffins. I could not have been more happy when she said muffins. I was shocked and then quickly remembered almost 3 years ago when we made Paleo Blueberry Muffins and I named the recipe after her in my original blog post. I asked her a couple more questions and sure enough she wanted to make blueberry muffins. I was pretty thrilled that instead of picking up a mix out of a box I was able to head to the fresh fruit aisle and grab blueberries. The rest of the ingredients I had on hand at home.
Of course we had a great time making and eating the muffins. Hope you enjoy these fun photos of the kids in the kitchen. Even little brother Oliver loved the muffins. The photo collage above is Kora making the muffins three years ago.
The kitchen is a great place to talk to kids about what is healthy. And it is good for children to see where food comes from and that there are many options available for making food. Food is much more than processed junk out of a box. When my nieces ask for fruit snacks, my new answer is “Ok here is some fruit what kind do you want?” It is fruit and it is a snack. How did we get to a place where fruit snacks are handed out everywhere and they are brightly packaged and many times very sneaky in their marketing tactics. I believed for many years, fruit snacks were a healthy snack. Well, obviously I was not reading the ingredients back then, I was just going off the name. The fact the name has fruit in it makes us think it is healthy. So even when the package says,”100% real fruit juice” Fat Free,” “Gluten Free” or “All Natural” do not be fooled. When we turn over the package and look at ingredients it is startling. Most brands have at least two or three artificial colors, sugar (and sometimes more than one kind of sugar) and when I was reading labels for this blog post I also came across some brands that had artificial sweeteners in them. And yes, there are some organic fruit snack brands that do not have artificial colors and other harmful ingredients. However, I recommend these only as a special treat. They are still packaged and processed with lots of sugar and they can be an expensive snack. When time allows, choose real, whole food for your kids.
Kora’s Blueberry Muffins
2 ½ cups almond flour
¾ tsp. baking soda
3 eggs
2 tbsp. organic, unrefined coconut oil
1 tsp. organic apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. honey
1 tsp. pure vanilla
1 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen will work)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a glass bowl, mix the flour and baking soda. Melt coconut oil and butter. Then mix in the eggs, butter, honey, coconut oil, vanilla and vinegar. When mixed well stir in blueberries. Put in muffin tins and bake 15 to 19 minutes until a nice golden brown color. If you are using muffin tins without paper liners be sure to grease the pan with coconut oil. If you are using silicon muffin holders you do not need to grease.