Once a week, Peanut and I get together with a bunch other moms and toddlers for “Mommy School.” We are making our way through the alphabet, so each week we start with a little lesson on the letter of the week, followed by an activity, maybe a snack, and then playtime.

Last week, I hosted, and we were on the letter M. I started out by introducing the letter, showing them capital and lower case, telling them what it said, and then asking them to tell me all the words they could think of that started with the letter M. Then we sang “Five Little Monkey’s Sitting in a Tree,” read Clifford’s Big Ice Cream Mess, and made masks:

And while we decorated masks, we ate Mini Muffins. I searched on Pinterest for a Toddler Muffin recipe, and it led me to this one from All Recipes. I made a few adjustments, and opted to cook them in a mini muffin tin, which made them perfect toddler size. It made 34 mini muffins, and they were so popular that we were left with only three by the end of Mommy School. Peanut and I loved them so much that I whipped up another batch the next day and froze them. Perfect healthy snack at a moments notice.

Healthy Mini Toddler Muffins
adapted from allrecipes

• 6 TB butter, softened
• 1/4 cup brown sugar 
• 2 large bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup applesauce (any pureed fruit or sweet veggie, like baby food, will work fine)
• 1 large carrot (or 6-7 baby carrots), grated
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Preheat an oven to 375 degrees. Grease 36 mini muffin cups (I used a 24 count mini muffin pan and a 12 count mini muffin pan, and only had 2 empty cups)
• In a mixing bowl or electric mixer, cream together the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Mix in the mashed bananas, squash, carrots, and eggs. Stir in the flour, oat bran, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, and salt until just combined. Spoon the batter equally into the prepared muffin cups.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean . Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack. Store at room temperature for up to two days, or freeze.