Easy Lunch Box Spiced Oat Muffins

I ran into another minor back-to-school crisis last night – we had run out of lunch box fillers!! Oh boy, how would my poor kids survive? Thankfully it occurred to that I could quickly make a batch of spiced oat muffins which would be ready within 30 minutes, and all the ingredients were already in my storecupboard.

This is the first week of the kids all being back at school since March and I can’t lie, the transition has been a bumpy ride! After having months and months to prepare, we were back into ‘routine’ without a roadmap. So we lost an access swipe card and a full set of PE gear by day 3. When I say we, I mean ‘they’ – the kids.

Things are made a bit more stressful due to a last minute arrival of a foreign student who I am trying to impress welcome with enough food for his school lunches. So when I peered into the school snacks in our kitchen and realised that we had run out of lunch box fillers by day 3 too, I thought this was a perfect opportunity to feed him some home baked goodies and earn a few stars.

My recipe below is an adaptation from this book:

1=50! 1 Mix 50 Muffins – Love Food*

We have had this handy little book for a number of years now and have used it so much many of the pages have become decorated or stuck together with the ingredients described in them.

The beauty of the book is that it gives you a basic formula for making perfect muffins which you can then adapt for the ingredients you already have in your storecupboard or fridge. The book also contains 50 recipes ranging from muffins that are ‘Indulgent’ or ‘Celebratory’ to those that are ‘Savoury’ or ‘Healthy’.

It is an extremely affordable book (usually around £2), you could buy a few of them and keep them in your gift cupboard for stocking fillers or emergency presents!

Easy Lunch Box Spiced Oat Muffins Recipe

Makes 12.

Total time 30 mins to make: prep time 5 mins, cook time 20 mins, cooling time 5 mins.

Ingredients:

• 140g plain white flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground mixed spice
• 115gm white sugar
• 180gm porridge oats
• 2 large free range eggs
• 250 ml milk
• 6 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 200°C (180°C fan) and line a muffin tray with paper cases.
2. Sift the first 3 ingredients together in a large bowl and then stir in the sugar and oats.
3. Place the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla together in a jug and beat lightly with a fork.
4. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and carefully fold with a large metal spoon. Do not over stir otherwise the muffins will end up heavy textured.
5. Using the large spoon, place a spoonful of the mix into each muffin case.
6. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until cooked through.

If you make these in the morning they can be served warm straight away for breakfast if you can’t keep them for lunch! The mix can be made the night before and baked in the morning if you pop them in first thing and have 20+ minutes to wait for them to cook and cool down.

If you try my easy lunch box Spiced Oat Muffins Recipe, I would love to hear how you got on in the comments below?

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