Muffining

Here it is a Sunday morning and the visiting offspring or that of it, yawns into your kitchen for a day of mayhem. Nothing cures mayhem more than something-to-do. Put the youngsters to work. Make muffins. Don't take the "bought" ones out of the freezer no matter how much you paid for them. They can never taste as good as what you will make today. Into a big bowl, and put the kids to work  on this, the lumpy ingredients: chopped nuts, apples, raisins or whatever they can invent, into the muffin-making bowl. If you have a big crowd or one that has a huge appetite, get two bowls going. if your young cooks want chocolate chips, so be it; skip some of the sugar. Into the bowl have them toss, I cup of flour, I tablespoon of baking powder, the magic addition of salt to make the former ingredient work. Tell the kids that baking is chemistry in action. From a half cup of sugar to almost none or use syrup if you wish for half, add the sweetness. A quarter cup of butter, the real thing, not the other one full of additives that never tastes as good. Toss in an egg. Stir it all up and slowly add, while mixing, the wet ingredient. I use powdered milk which is already in the bowl but use whatever kind of milk works for you, and there are many.  Stir and stir and stir. The kids love this part.  Lastly, pop in the lumpy bits: apples, nuts, raisins, strawberries, blueberries lemon zest whatever you have chopped up and on hand. Could even be bacon and cheese.  Oil the muffin tins, fill them not quite to the top and put the pan into the oven for about 15 minutes, give or take. The children will be watching the home-made treats, slowly rise and brown. They can make a contest with the timer as to when they will be done. It might prove that the oven door can be just as exciting as the device screen they spend too much time on, and which hopefully, all good grandparents have insisted is in the basket by the door where they will reside until departures take place. If you do the latter, you are being a good grandparent, never mind the grumbles. It's your house! Experts say that young ones spend far too much time on screens. Back to the muffins. When the time is up, give the tops a bit of a push on top to make sure they are at the springy stage before taking them out of the oven. When you do, give the pan a tap upside down over the counter and the muffins should fall out.  By this time, you have had the children set the table and filled the glasses with milk or juice or water and it's hot muffin eat up the yummy stuff time. No need to put the butter out. Your young cooks are reminded that it's already in the muffins. Of course, only our  best junior cooks can taste the butter in the muffins! You'll find that nothing brings a family closer together than sitting down at table eating what it cooked together. And all that fun, isn't on a screen.