3 Little Chefs™ Create-A-Muffin Mix

Product Number: 05001

The 3 Little Chefs Create-a-Muffin Mix provides enough dry ingredients to make 1 dozen muffins. You only have to provide the wet and dairy ingredients, your choice of fruit, nuts, or berries and your imagination. This not only provides an opportunity to be creative, but also to teach the basics of cooking including how to measure and use kitchen utensils. The act of cooking provides an opportunity to enhance children’s educational skills.

History of Muffins

English style muffins traditionally baked on a griddle may date back to the 10th or 11th century in Wales. American style muffins are more of a ’quick bread’ baked in individual molds. “Quick breads," chemically leavened as opposed to yeast leavened, were not developed until the end of the 18th century. This took place in America, where pearlash, a refined form of potash which produces carbon dioxide gas in dough, was discovered. In American Cookery (1796 - the first American cook book), Amelia Simmons published recipes using pearlash, and we exported some 8,000 tons of it to Europe in 1792. Commercial baking powder was not developed until 1857.

Quick bread muffins really need to be baked in molds because they are made with a batter rather than a dough. But aren’t cupcakes also baked in mold? Which came first, cupcake ’cups’ or muffin pans?

The term ’cupcake’ is first mentioned in E. Leslie’s Receipts of 1828. So, what it really comes down to is who invented the muffin pan, or who used cupcake molds first to make quick bread muffins? It would appear that the history of the quick bread muffin and the cupcake are intertwined.

Baking Mix Information

Ingredients: Flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon.