Deceptively Delicious Muffins

I bought Robin a cookbook for Christmas called “Deceptively Delicious” by Jessica Seinfeld (Jerry’s wife). It’s all about blending up vegetables and cooking them in foods that your kids eat so they get their veggies without knowing it. Robin loved the book and we even tried some of the recipes when I was in Boise over the holidays. (Cauliflower in scrambled eggs!) I actually had bought a second book for Carrie, but she doesn’t have much time for that special kind of cooking, so I ended up keeping it myself.

On Saturday, I went to a Pampered Chef party hosted by a friend who has Celiac disease (gluten allergy). She served a cake that I could not tell was gluten free. It was delicious. I found out from her it was “Sans Gluten Free” from Whole Foods.

Well, I got the idea to use one of those cake mixes and Jessica’s ideas and make up some muffins for Lauren. Lauren loves “sketti”, scrambled eggs, bananas, sliced turkey and cheese, but she doesn’t eat many fruits and vegetables. She does, however, love cake!

On Sunday, I got the ingredients for those muffins along with a variety of vegetables and fruits. I added extra rice flour, eggs and milk to the cake batter to reduce the amount of sugar so they would be healthier for Lauren. I steamed and pureed and mashed and mixed and matched two dozen muffins in about twelve different flavors. I bagged them up noting on each baggie what was in each one. I took them over to L.I.F.E. on Monday for Lauren.

Carrie called today to say Lauren really likes them. I explained how healthy they were for her and Carrie was really pleased. It’s a great healthy snack or meal alternative for Lauren.

I’ve mentioned what I did to a couple of friends and now people are asking me for the recipe. So here it is.

1 Box Sans Gluten Free White Cake Mix
Mix as directed on box. Add to the batter:
1/2 C rice flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1/2 C buttermilk or sour milk

Taking 1/3 C of batter into a separate bowl, add pureed fruits, vegetables and peanut butter as desired. I used anywhere from about a tablespoon of each vegetable puree to 1/4 C in each mix. This was enough for 2 muffins. The ones with less veggies raised more, but the denser ones were still delicious.
Some of the combinations I tried:

Sweet potatoes & apples
Carrots, apples, peanut butter
Peas & blueberries
Shredded zucchini, banana, peanut butter
Peas, carrots, blueberries & apples
Peas, blueberries, peanut butter
Zucchini & blueberries

I’m going to get a chocolate one next time. I read you can put beets and/or broccoli in it and not even tell.