Snotty Noses Happy Parents Raising Healthy Kids by Dr Orlena Kerek, Paediatrician

You know how I’m always going on about healthy snacks being the key (OK, one of the keys) to get your kids to eat a healthy diet? Well, these are healthy and easy carrot cake muffins. In fact, the easy bit is part of my grand plan to take over the world …

Here’s a great “mummy time saving tip”. I’ll admit it’s not a great tip for the short run BUT the long term bonuses are huge.

Here we go.

Teach your kids to cook.

I know, I know, there are heaps of benefits to your kids cooking, like giving them control over what they eat, a slightly increased chance that they’ll actually eat what they cook, long term life skills etc etc.

But here’s the big one.

Easy Carrot Cake Muffins

Once they get old enough to cook, they can do it ALL BY THEMSELVES. Yep, you read that right. ALL by themselves. No adult supervision, no putting off “cooking with the kids” because you really can’t face the mess, no pretending you didn’t hear when they say, “can we make muffins?”

Now Galen is 8 and knows how to cook a stonking muffin.

Galen says, “can I make muffins?”

I say, “yes”.

Easy.

I’ll admit, I did go through a “mother hen” phase of buzzing around the kitchen “helping” him (read making sure he wasn’t going to kill himself or set fire to the house or cut his hand off in the magi mix. Not that you even need a magi mix to make muffins.) You got me, I was learning to trust him alone in the kitchen. We haven’t got to naked flames yet. The muffins go straight in the oven.

I did feel mean when Dante (6) wanted to help and I pretty much told him, “no”. I’m not sure Galen is ready to cook AND supervise unruly siblings. And if I helped it wouldn’t have been Galen cooking by himself.

End result? Easy (especially if you don’t have to do ANYTHING yourself), healthy, tasty easy carrot cake muffins.

Galen was really proud of himself and I didn’t have to think about what we were going to eat for our healthy snack.

Win Win Win!

Carrot Cake Nuggets of Awesomeness

For this recipe we went with “basic healthy muffin recipes” combined with our favourite carrot cake. See where we’re going here? We’ve transformed our amazing carrot cake into snack sized greatness.

Loads of Muffin Recipes, Well “Some Muffin Recipes”!

The basic ingredients of all our muffins are the same, we just change the fruit and spices. So not only does my 8 year old feel awesome for doing any cooking at all, he’s busy inventing new things too.

Last week it was “tooty fruity” muffins. I didn’t write that one up as I didn’t want to bore you with yet another muffin to add to our billion muffin recipes….Easy Date and Almond Muffins Strawberry and Almond Muffins Apple Spice Muffins Healthy Zucchini Muffins

“Billion” was a slight exaggeration. 4. Now 5. I didn’t want to bore you with yet another muffin recipe to add to our 5 other muffins.

Here you go.

Ingredients for Carrot Cake Muffins.

• 250g (2 cups) flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 50g (1/3 cup) brown sugar
• 2 pots (125 mls each) of full fat, no added sugar, greek yoghurt
• 3 eggs
• 3 carrots, peeled and grated
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds

How to Make Carrot Muffins.

1. In your “wet bowl” whisk the eggs, sugar and yoghurt together.
2. In a large “dry bowl” sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon.
3. Add the carrots, raisins and sunflower seeds into the largest bowl.
4. Then pour everything else into the biggest bowl.
5. Mix it gently so that you have a lumpy looking batter. It looks like carrots with a bit of batter around them. Be careful not to over mix, otherwise you end up with bouncy muffins. Not great.
6. Put them in the silicon moulds.
7. Bake at 180°C for 30 minutes. (Check them after 20, you want them to be brown on the top and “solid” colour at the bottom. They shouldn’t look translucent.)

As you can see, we took ours to the beach for a healthy afternoon snack.

We’re already planning our next batch of easy carrot cake muffins to take as a gift to our friend who has just had a baby. It’s “Operation Muffin!” A healthy snack for our breastfeeding friend from our son to give her a glimpse of what life will be like in 8 years time (and how quickly it whizzes by.)

Healthy Snack Guide for Children

If you find it really difficult to provide healthy snacks for your children, here’s the perfect answer. My simple guide to how to make snacks healthy will show you how to make easy and simple snacks that are healthy without having to resort to getting your 8 year old to cook. Simply enter your email address (which will sign you up to my newsletter). You’ll receive your guide plus you get weekly tips from me to help encourage you. If you ever want to unsubscribe, there is a link in every email.