Mini Pancake Muffins

Welcome to my new blog. One of my cousins has been suggesting I create one for a while now, so here it goes!

I have a sweet little one who is almost five months old! We love her to pieces and she is growing way too fast. While we still have some time until she turns one, I have been enjoying planning her first birthday party and pinning things like crazy on Pinterest. Recently, I stumbled across this amazing idea for mini pancake muffins and just had to try it. We plan on serving breakfast for dinner at little one’s party, and finger foods would be perfect. Now, sometimes Pinterest has ideas that look great and then they turn out to be complete failures when you try to execute it. However, this one was a huge win and super easy.

With most of the ingredients already in my pantry, it seemed meant to be! Now, I didn’t have lemon juice (and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to substitute in the lime juice in the fridge), but I did have dehydrated lemon peel from Penzeys! I took 1 tsp of peel and let it soak in 3 tsp of water for 15 minutes. While that sat and rehydrated, I added ¼ tsp of dehydrated peel to my dry ingredients. It added a little extra lemon flavoring and was delicious. Penzeys has the best spices, and I love using them whenever possible. I also took this time to prep my toppings: I cut up strawberries and grabbed some mini chocolate chips and baked coconut pieces. Yum!

Once the batter was prepared, I got out some mini muffin pans and lined them with papers. The recipe said to grease the pans, but I wanted to try the papers for an easier clean up. (Next time I would use a little cooking spray with the papers because they did stick a bit.)

The recipe says to put 1 Tbsp of batter in each pocket, but I did go back and add a tiny bit more to each one, to make a total of 24 mini pancake muffins. Before baking them, I added my toppings. Then I baked them for 12 minutes at 350 degrees.

They came out looking beautiful and tasting even better! My husband and I liked the chocolate chip and strawberry ones best. Next time we’re going to try adding blueberries to some in place of the coconut. While they taste good on their own, they are even better with maple syrup. These will definitely be making an appearance at our Mother’s Day brunch, as well as baby girl’s first birthday party!

Recipe for Mini Pancake Muffins
From the Kitchen of Anna@CrunchyCreamySweet

Ingredients:
1 c all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 c milk
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 egg
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a mini muffin pan with spray or butter and set aside. Prepare toppings by placing them in small bowls.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. In another bowl, whisk together the milk and lemon juice. Let sit for 3 minutes. Then add in egg and vanilla and whisk together. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Place one Tbsp of batter into each muffin cup and top with desired toppings. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool muffins in the pan for 10 minutes before removing them. Enjoy!