September 22, 2011

Secret Ingredient Muffins.

I struggle with what sort of snacks to put in the Farmchildren's lunchboxes sometimes.  By the time I have navigated the no nuts, no junk food rules enforced by the school and child care centre I often find that not many of my recipes suit.  And there is only so much fruit they can eat.  This muffin recipe is super sneaky because the result looks like plain old chocolate muffins but they are actually very healthy.  I love a deceptive kid's snack recipe.  They always make me happy.

The secret healthy ingredient in these muffins is below.

Kidney Beans

Yep - kidney beans.  Now if I gave my kids plain old kidney beans in their lunch there is no way on this earth they would eat them.  (And if your kids do, good luck to you, you have reached ultimate uber Mum status!)  But in these muffins the beans go down no problem whatsoever.

The trick is in the making.

Ingredients


  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 100ml of canola oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 400g tin of kidney beans
  • 1 cup SR flour
  • 1/2 cup of cocoa
  • 1/2 cup of milk
First of all drain those beans.  Then you need to get them all mushed up.  I put them in a jug and puree the living daylights out of them with my stick blender.  If you wanted to go old school you could get out the potato masher and go hell for leather.  Alternatively a mini food processor would do the trick.  Beware leaving any beans whole.  Once kids discover the beans are there, they never forget.

The beans should look like this.

Pureed beans


Then sift the flour and cocoa and add the brown sugar.  Mix all of these dry ingredients together.  Add the other ingredients and stir all together until you get a lumpy batter.

Like this.

Lumpy Batter

Then pop the batter evenly into 12 patty pans in a muffin tin.  Bake at 180 degrees celsius for 12-15 minutes.

Yum.  And with a hidden serve of beans....

Deceptive Chocolate Muffins

18 comments:

sour milk. said...

Ahhh I LOVE sneaky recipes like this, definitely putting this one in the memory bank! Thanks for sharing :)

Emma said...

Good one! Have you got Jerry Seinfeld's wife's book on sneaky kids recipes? Looks right up your alley if you like putting kidney beans in choc muffins!

MultipleMum said...

They sound delicious. My kids do eat kidney beans but I bet they would like them more in the guise of a chocolate muffin! I will give this a try. x

Makeminemidcentury said...

Can you taste the beans?

That's quite incredible. I did look at Mrs Seinfeld's recipe book once and decided it wasn't for me.

But I think I could do this recipe.

A Farmer's Wife said...

No bean taste whatsoever...

cheryl @ nefotlak. said...

LOVE IT!!
i also have a choc cake recipe that uses mostly chick peas - no flour - absolutely delicious!!
must try yours - then must make and blog about mine!!
thanks for this one.
cheryl xox.

Domesblissity said...

That's a good one AFW. I've tried that one before too. I've got a recipe to try for chocolate cake using black beans. My sister tried it and she said it was the best chocolate cake she'd ever eaten and she'd know! LOL

http://www.healthyindulgences.net/2009/05/healthy-chocolate-cake-with-secret.html

Anne xx

Lisa @ .Simply Me. said...

That's awesome, if I had a fussy eater I would be on board! We're very lucky that Bub will eat pretty much anything - although I doubt straight kidney beans would go down well. At daycare this year she gets a hot (and healthy) lunch but at school next year with packed lunches, we'll have to start thinking of creative lunchbox ideas!

Kimmie said...

Thanks for this recipe will make these over the weekend!

Hugs

Kimmie
x

Sydney Shop Girl said...

It's cunning and it's chocolate.

I like it - alot!

Have a lovely weekend, AFW.

I'm okay. Better than last week and better than the week before :-) Thank you for asking.

SSG xxx

Sydney Shop Girl blog

I'm So Fancy said...

I'm actually thinking those might work on H...

Ellie said...

Genius! I love sneaking in healthy ingredients. My kids are generally not fussy, but there are a few things - including kidney beans - that they refuse to it. I'm sure if they had a different name, they wouldn't mind them. Anyway, thanks for sharing your recipe, I will definitely try it.

LPC said...

Brilliant.

River said...

I used to sneak things into spaghetti sauce when my kids were little, but never kidney beans. I would never have thought to try them in muffins.

Semi Expat said...

What a great recipe - as well as deceptive and good for you too! X

deux chiens et un garcon said...

Fantastic.

Gues what I made your olive oil choc cake yesterday. So now to try this one with all those legumes, fantastico.

Unknown said...

The best kind! I have a biscuit recipe which has chick peas and choc chips in it. The kids wouldn't even know!

Love it!

xx

Diminishing Lucy said...

I have said it before, but I love love love your recipes.

THIS one is on for my weekend bakeoff...