Mini Maple Pancake Muffins. Review and Yum!

A friend of mine recently reminded me of an amazing baking site called Bakerella. I had not been there in a while and when I went to glance and remember, these were staring at me on the front page. Always looking for new ways to make breakfast a little more exciting so the children will strongly consider staying at the table and consuming food, I knew I had to try them.

Here's the recipe from Bakerella.

Generously grease a 24 cup mini muffin pan with non-stick spray.

Mini Maple Chocolate Chip Pancake Muffins.

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar
2/3 cup buttermilk

1 egg

2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons melted butter

1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

• Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar in a medium bowl. Sift together with a wire whisk.
• In another bowl, stir buttermilk, egg, maple syrup and melted butter until just combined.
• Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir with a spoon until combined.
• Stir in chocolate chips. Reserve a few chips to sprinkle on the tops.
• Bake for 8-9 minutes.

Makes 24 mini pancake muffins.
Let cool slightly and remove from the pan. You may need to use a toothpick around the edges to separate the pancake muffins from the pan.
Serve immediately with warmed butter if you like or even just with maple syrup.

It's really very simple. You are making a basic pancake mix - although this one has yummy maple syrup in it - and baking them in mini muffin pans.

Let's get started.

On one of my recent baking supply shopping sprees - where everything is on sale because it's the Holiday Season! - I purchased these mini muffin pan liners. Cute!

The mini muffin pans themselves were found at a thrift store. Love love love thrift stores!

I started this new thing called Get All Your Ingredients Ready Before You Start. I'm sure I've heard many a baker/chef tout the same concept - it's a pretty crazy concept. But it's amazing and I highly recommend it!

Let me also remind you about my most favorite "tool." That would be the baking sheet over which I measure everything. I also place all yucky tools on it. The clean up factor is amazing! Please try this, at least once. This baking pan is now the first item I get out when I'm collecting everything I need for whatever I'm baking.

Whisk together your dry ingredients.

Then realize the bowl isn't big enough and transfer said ingredients to a larger bowl.

Start mixing your liquids in the first bowl.

I am also a big proponent of getting the least amount of dishes dirty. So I break the egg into the glass measuring cup where I just measured the buttermilk.

See? There's the egg. He's happy. I always always always break my eggs in a separate container, not directly into the batter. Digging out eggshells is not my thing. Not at all and it never will be.

Add the liquids to the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Then add the chocolate chips.

Allow me to introduce my next favorite baking tool. The measuring scoop.

La la la laaaaaaaaa!!!!

Let's look at her from another angle. Nice! This is a tablespoon-sized measuring scoop. The only reason I know that is because I measured it myself by filling a tablespoon of water into the scoop. Would certainly be more helpful if the tag or the scoop itself simply said how much it held, but it didn't and it doesn't.

I fill the scoop and run it across the edge of the bowl, like so.

I came up short for exactly two. Oh well. Having only 22 mini maple pancake muffins is not necessarily a bad thing. I took out those paper liners, by the way, before I put them in the oven.

Here's something else I did before I put them in the oven.

I put a few chocolate chips on top of the batter. It's pretty.

Mine took a lot longer to cook than the 8 or 9 minutes in the recipe. A lot longer. Not sure what it was. They sort of started to brown on tops and I think I just figured good grief, they have to be done!

Yes, i took the paper away from him. Promise.

 They were a huge hit. I used the last of the maple syrup we had for the recipe. But I figured with all the chocolate in them, they were quite sweet enough. I melted some butter and had that sitting on standby, but there was really no need. They were delicious. Nothing healthy about them and it wasn't one of those breakfasts that made me think, "I feel great as a mother, I fed my family a healthy hardy meal!" But we all need treats once in a while. And it was a truly yummy treat.

Here's one issue, or another issue, I had with them: Even though they had a great puffy top, when you opened the wrapper, it was as if the muffin was missing. It was a strange phenomenon and I would love anyone's input as to what that might have been caused by.

Highly recommended!