Surprise! Muffins for May

 

May kind of snuck up on me. Between teaching (I'm a middle school language arts teacher), track (I'm also a track coach at the middle school), and life in general, I missed my self imposed deadline of posting a new muffin recipe on the first Monday of each month.

I am writing this on Mother's Day, and naturally I am thinking about my own Mother and how great a cook she was when I was a kid - and still is.

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My mother made a lot of baked goods. One of my favorites were surprise muffins. They were a basic muffin with a little hidden surprise inside: a spoonful of jelly. Mom made them with lots of different kinds of jelly, and all were good. If you wanted to try making muffins similar to the ones I loved as a kid, you could start with my basic Manic Muffins and add a spoonful of any jelly that struck your fancy. 

Instead of just copying my Mother's recipe, I decided to create a little variation. What goes well with jelly? Peanut butter, of course! I used chunky peanut butter because someone in this house thinks it's the only kind worth eating, and I liked the little chunks of nuts in the muffins, but you could use smooth peanut butter in this recipe instead. You could also use a different type of jelly. Strawberry would be good, and apricot or orange marmalade would all be worth trying.

​Give this quick and easy muffin recipe a try. I think it might become as common on your breakfast table as - peanut butter and jelly!

PB&J Manic Muffins

1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
2 eggs
1 cup water
2 2/3 cup Manic Muffin Mix
Grape jelly

Put peanut butter in a microwavable bowl. Microwave 30 seconds.
Add water, eggs, and mix thoroughly.
Add muffin mix and stir until there are no dry spots.
 
Fill muffin cups that have been lined with papers half full of batter. ​

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Add 1 tsp. grape jelly to the middle of each muffin.
Top jelly with enough batter to bring each muffin cup up to the 3/4 mark.
 
Bake in a 350 oven for 20 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack, or serve immediately.

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