Special Teddy Bear Muffins

This morning we decided we wanted to bake something special. So, after putting on our aprons we headed down to the kitchen.

Our mom loves to bake and has all sorts of baking stuff but out of all of the stuff she has there is this one very special muffin pan that we are beary excited about. We think she must have gotten it to make muffins just for us.  It makes the most BEE-U-TEE-FULL muffins in the shape of eight little Teddy bears.  Each one of the bears is different, sort of like we all are. She told us it was made by the John Wright Company and that she has had it for nearly 30 years.

This is from the bottom side

And this is the top side. Isn't it just the sweetest pan you ever laid eyes on??? We asked our mom if she would help us use it to bake some muffins for our hug. We need her help lifting it because it weighs a ton.  Mom says it’s so heavy because it is made from something called cast iron. It looks really old and before we can use it mom says we have to season it. We guess that means we have to sprinkle salt on it.

Mom wanted to know what sort of muffins we are going to bake and when we told her we hadn’t decided yet she said she’d season the pan while we look through the recipe boxes and figure it out. We looked at the recipes but couldn't find one we both could settle on.

That's not a problem when you're experienced bakers like we are. We can invent a recipe for the best Teddy bear muffins that there ever was. It’s not all that hard to invent a recipe you know. You just need to start with a basic recipe for something and then get creative. Anyway, that’s what our mom told us.

So...After checking both pantries to see what we have to work with we put together a  recipe and we gathered together all of the things we are going to need for our muffins and then we start measuring and mixing. Here's the recipe and we're naming it:

Bellamine & Wendy’s Sweet Potato Teddy Bear Muffins

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup mashed canned sweet potatoes

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Heat oven to 400 degrees F (204.4 degrees C) for ordinary muffin pans or if your pan is cast iron like ours 375 degrees F (190.5 degrees C) Spray muffin cups or teddy bears, the ones in the pan not each other with cooking spray.

In a medium sized bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg; set aside. In a larger bowl beat the egg slightly with whisk then stir in milk, mashed sweet potatoes, brown sugar and butter; stirring until thoroughly blended. Stir in dry ingredients just until flour is moistened. Batter should be lumpy. Spoon batter into the Teddy bears (or muffin cups) filling them 2/3 full. Sprinkle each bear with 1/4 teaspoon of sugar. We used this really big chunky sugar that we think is called Turbinado sugar or something like that. It’s supposed to be healthier than regular sugar but we used it anyway cause we think it will look good on the muffin bears. Hey Wendy, We're sugaring their back sides. heheheheheheheh

Put in oven and bake for 18 to 20 minutes. Ours went the 20 minutes and got really puffed up and are the perfect color of little Teddy bears.  

Remove from pan immediately and gobble them down while they’re still really warm with mugs of hot chocolate. Be beary careful you don’t burn yourself.

They're almost too cute to eat but we ate them anyway.

If you don’t have canned sweet potatoes you can use canned pumpkin instead. We wanted to make pumpkin muffins but we didn’t have any pumpkin cause Mom used it up baking bread and pies at Christmas and never got around to buying more. Don’t worry, we were very helpful and put it on her shopping list. We think that the next time we bake these muffins we’re going to use honey in the place of the sugar in the recipe. We didn’t try it this time cause that’s another thing Mom forgot to get at the market and we’re running dangerously low. As in we might run out if we’re not beary careful. We added that to her list as well. The hug was beary impressed with our baking skills or maybe it’s like our mom says and they just like sweets. Cocoa is one more thing we had to add to the shopping list. We’re starting to wonder if we should be worried about our mom’s forgetfulness. Forgetting to buy honey and cocoa? Really Mom what’s next? Are you going to forget the Peanut butter and miniature marsh mellows?

We’re thinking about making a batch of the Teddy muffins to give to Santa to see if he gives them the Santa Seal of Approval. It’s a special award that is reserved for only the beary best of whatever he decides to bestow the award on.

Now that we have filled our tummies we’re going to visit with our friends to see what they’ve been up to.

Hugs,

Bellamine & Wendy