healthy whole wheat single serving minute muffin – in the microwave!

On a recent trip to the grocery store I saw a “minute muffin” – a single serving muffin mix in a cup. All you have to do is add water and microwave for a minute and you have a surprisingly soft, tasty breakfast. The only problem was the price – way more for one muffin than I want to pay – however convenient. So over the past few weeks I’ve been working out my own minute muffin recipe, with the help of my kids as taste testers.

We’ve been trying to switch to whole wheat as much as possible, so I made this a whole wheat muffin, and my kids love it, even though they aren’t huge fans of whole wheat bread. The muffin comes out of the microwave very soft and tender, sweetened with a little brown sugar and spiced with cinnamon.

I mix up the dry ingredients and keep them in a container in the fridge. All my older kids are able to measure and mix in the wet ingredients on their own, making this a favorite snack for any time of day. The muffin is quite tasty by itself, but super delicious with a bit of butter and honey on top.

The muffin is fairly large, making it a pretty good breakfast all on it’s own. Each muffin is about 260 calories, which is a bit more than they’d get from a bowl of cereal, but there are no preservatives or chemicals and each muffin has almost 10 grams of protein, making them quite filling. If you’re concerned about calories, you could try using splenda instead of brown sugar to save about 50 per muffin.

Start to finish you can have a warm, tasty muffin in just a few minutes. Here’s how it works:

Start by putting 1/2 tablespoon of butter in a mug (just use the markings on the butter wrapper to cut 1 tablespoon, then cut that in half). Microwave 15 seconds to melt. Measure in 1/3 cup dry mix and 1/4 cup milk (we use nonfat). Add 1/4 teaspoon vanilla and half of a beaten egg. Whisk to combine, then microwave about 90 seconds.

Now, to minimize the amount of dishes this creates, I just use a 1/3 C measuring cup for everything – I use it to measure the dry mix, then fill it not quite full to measure the milk, then crack an egg in it and use a fork to lightly beat, then tip half the egg into the mug and use the same fork to mix everything together. I also rarely actually measure the vanilla – just tip a few drops in. This means you can make the muffin using one mug, one measuring cup, and one fork – not bad!

In our microwave the muffin takes exactly 90 seconds. The consistency is quite airy – a little more so than a traditional muffin – so it’s almost a cross between a muffin and a bread. You may have to experiment with the time to see what works best in your microwave – if the muffin seems dry, try cutting 10 seconds off the time, and if any part is wet, add a few.

If you’d like a berry muffin, just mix a few frozen berries in before microwaving – and add 20-30 seconds to the cook time.

A few last notes: 1) you’ll want to use a mug that holds at least 1 and 3/4 cups of water, and 2) once you’ve eaten the muffin, wash the mug or fill it with water immediately – if you let it dry if can be hard to clean. We’ve been making at least a couple of these a day at our house – I hope you guys like them as much as we do!