Baking snacks at home is one of the best ways to save money on groceries! Plus, an added benefit is that you can increase nutrition by using quality ingredients in your homemade muffin recipes. Learn how to bake whole wheat muffins that the whole family will love.
Simple whole wheat mini muffins are the right size for lunchboxes or for toddler snacks. And standard-sized muffins with wheat flour can be a healthy breakfast-on-the-go as well as a nutritious snack.
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Baking muffins with whole wheat flour is an easy way to add whole grains to your family's diet. It's a healthier choice because it has more fiber than white all-purpose flour. Even changing your baking to using a white whole wheat multi-purpose flour is an improvement to the nutritional value of what you're baking.
When you start baking muffins at home for family snacks, consider transitioning from white to wheat flour in stages. At first, replace one-quarter of the recipe's white flour requirement with whole wheat flour. No one will taste the difference! As you bake more wheat muffin recipes, you'll love the nutty flavor that whole wheat flour imparts.
For kids who find that flavor noticeable, it's easy enough to add fruit, mini chocolate chips or even cocoa to the batter for a different flavor profile. Over time, move to half white/half wheat flour in your muffin recipes, and then just follow wheat muffin recipes as directed.
Is baking with wheat flour different than baking with all-purpose or white flour? It is! It's important to know the difference, or you won't see the fluffy baked goods you're used to.
It's not as simple as simply switching a recipe's all-purpose flour amount to whole wheat, but it's not too complicated. Just remember that whole wheat flour doesn't rise as much and results in denser batter.
Baking smaller muffins is a great way to stock up on healthy family snacks! When my three kids were toddlers, I preferred baking mini muffins with wheat flour and their favorite fruits and vegetables. Some of our favorite recipes using wheat flour are:
Cinnamon maple muffins
Chocolate chip wheat mini muffins
Whole wheat pumpkin chocolate chip mini muffins
Chocolate banana mini muffins
Whole wheat cinnamon mini muffins
When you bake wheat muffin recipes in standard-sized muffin tins, it's easier to notice that the density of the muffin is different than those baked with white flour. That's why I like to fill mine with favorite fruits, vegetables and even a little sweetness like chocolate! Give these muffin recipes a try:
Whole wheat blueberry muffins
Maple and brown sugar muffins
Sweet potato whole wheat muffins
You don't need any unusual equipment for switching your family's favorite muffin recipes over to wheat flour. Though, I do recommend starting with mini muffins until they get used to the nutty flavor that whole wheat flour has. See my must-haves for muffin baking.
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