Cheerios Banana Muffins #MuffinMonday

Cheerios Banana Muffins are made with crushed Cheerios or, I suppose, their store-brand equivalent and sweet ripe bananas. Bake a batch for someone you love. 

Almost every morning, my father has a bowl of Cheerios with fruit and yogurt (also wheat bran!) which is a very healthy breakfast and possibly the reason he has made it to the great age of 85 years old. It certainly doesn’t hurt. 

When he was planning to visit last year I bought a box in readiness and then COVID hit and the trip was canceled. For 15 months that box has languished in my pantry until finally I couldn’t take it anymore. It had to be opened and used!

I started looking for recipes with Cheerios and was surprised by how many there are. Who knew? It occurs to me that they would also work great in Uncle Hector’s 100 Cookies so a batch of those is next on the to-be-baked list.

This is touted on the Cheerios website as the perfect breakfast on the go since it already has cereal baked right in. I cannot disagree. Equally, these muffins make a great snack for your tea or coffee break. 

Cheerios Banana Muffins

This recipe is adapted from the one on the actual Cheerios website. They want you to put a whole cup of raisins as well but I knew that wouldn’t be popular at my house because, and I quote my younger daughter, people like plain things. Raisins do not qualify. 

Ingredients

2 cups or 54g Cheerios cereal, plus a little extra for decoration

1 1/4 cups or 156g all-purpose flour

1/2 cup or 100g packed brown sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 medium very ripe bananas (about 195g, peeled weight)

2/3 cup or 156ml milk

3 tablespoons canola or other light oil

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 egg

Method

Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C.  Prepare a 12-cup regular-size muffin pan by greasing the cups or lining them with paper muffin liners.

Crush the cereal with a rolling pin in a Ziploc bag or with a small food processor until fairly fine. One comment on another blog that shared a similar recipe said that the muffins were gritty because the Cheerios weren’t crushed finely enough so I did mine in the food processor. No one wants gritty muffins.

In large bowl, whisk together the Cheerios crumbs, flour, brown sugar and baking powder and salt. 

In another mixing bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. 

Add in the milk, oil, vanilla and egg. Whisk till well combined. 

Pour the wet ingredients in the dry and fold just until moistened. 

Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Sprinkle with a few Cheerios for decoration, if desired. 

Bake for 18 to 22 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. 

I must confess that while they look fun and are crunchy when first baked, the Cheerios on top got chewy after a day in an airtight container. My husband didn’t mind them. My younger daughter picked them off. You do you. The important thing is that everyone liked the muffins themselves!

Enjoy! 

It's Muffin Monday! Check out all the lovely muffins by blogger friends are sharing.

• Banana Rhubarb Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Cheerios Banana Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• S'mores Muffins from Jolene's Recipe Journal
• Sourdough Strawberry Muffins from Zesty South Indian Kitchen
• Vegan Chocolate Cherry Muffins from Magical Ingredients

 

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page.

Pin these Cheerios Banana Muffins! 

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Spicy Grilled Leg of Lamb

This spicy grilled leg of lamb is butterflied, marinated with garlic, lemon zest and za’atar and cooked up juicy and tender, perfect for a barbecue party!

Everybody loves a good leg of lamb roast but when it’s grilling season, who wants to be indoors with the oven on? This spicy grilled leg of lamb starts with a butterflied leg, making it quicker to cook that a traditional roast. And all those seasonings and the touch of flame from the grill make it more delicious. 

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, our family loves lamb. We eat it in stews, roasts for family, roasts for only two, in shish kebabs and murtabak and stuffed naan, just to mention a few of our favorites. We are also fond of slow cooked lamb shoulder and rack of lamb. Honestly, there’s nothing that says Sunday supper at our house like a beautiful rosemary and garlic spiked leg of lamb roasted to a golden brown with roasted potatoes.

But when temperatures start to rise and I am loath to turn the oven on, this spicy grilled leg of lamb is our favorite way to cook it. Removing the bones, in other words, creating a butterflied leg of lamb, opens the meat up so you can add marinade both inside and out. The result is a perfect spicy grilled leg of lamb. 

Spicy Grilled Leg of Lamb

I’ve made this recipe several times with lamb legs of varying sizes. If yours is bigger, simply increase the ingredient amounts for the marinade accordingly. I only give the weight of my most recent leg as a guide. The one before this was twice this weight! 

Ingredients

1 leg of lamb (about 2.6 lbs or 1.2 kg) - bone, sinews and gristle removed

For the marinade:

2 large cloves garlic

1 teaspoon kosher or coarse grained sea salt

1/2 teaspoon whole peppercorns

2 tablespoons za’atar (a Middle Eastern spice mix)

Juice and zest one lemon or lime

2 tablespoons olive oil

Method

Crush the peeled garlic with a mortar and pestle, along with the salt, peppercorns, za’atar and lemon (or lime, I use either depending on what's in the fridge) zest, until you have a fine paste. 

Add in the lemon (or lime) juice and olive oil and whisk to combine. 

Spread the marinade over your butterflied leg of lamb on both sides.

Pop it into a Ziploc bag and try to squeeze all the air out before sealing. Refrigerate for at least one hour or until you are ready to grill the lamb. This step can even be done the day before if you are prepping for a barbecue party. 

When you are about ready to grill, remove the lamb from the refrigerator and get the grill fired up and ready to go. We have a charcoal grill so, once lit, it takes about 20 minutes for the coals to start turning grey.

Cook the spicy grilled leg of lamb to your desired degree of doneness. We like it pretty pink inside so that takes about 12-15 minutes a side. My apologies for no actual grilling photos. In the dark outside, when we finally got around to grilling this time, they would not have been helpful. Plus only YOU know how rare (or not) you like your lamb. 

Leave to rest for about 10 minutes then slice the spicy grilled leg of lamb thinly to serve. 

Since it's summer, I suggest a side salad as an accompaniment. If you really need potatoes, how about a pumped up potato salad? (I wanted to call this Pimp My Potato Salad but my daughter wouldn't let me. It's so good!)

Enjoy! 

It's Sunday FunDay and I am hosting! Our theme is Summer Grilling because who doesn't love a little smoky flavor and cooking outside. Check out the great recipes we are sharing below: 

• Basque Pipérade with Grilled Tuna Steaks from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Grilled Eggplant with Garlic and Parmesan from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Spicy Grilled Leg of Lamb from Food Lust People Love
• Stuffed Pizza Burgers from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Tandoori Gobi - Cauliflower Made On Gas Stove from Sneha’s Recipe
• Tandoori Masala - Spice Mixture from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Tequila Lime Chicken from Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Vietnamese Lemongrass Pork Kebabs from Palatable Pastime

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

Pin this Spicy Grilled Leg of Lamb!

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Chocolate Pixies

Chocolate Pixies are a magical combination of chewy, crunchy, chocolatey and nutty, baked with a light coating of powdered pixie dust aka icing sugar.

Years ago I came across a recipe in Gourmet magazine for baked treats they called “chocolate crackle cookies.” The actual magazine belonged to a friend so I photocopied it and stuck it in my recipe binder. 

As you can see from the photo, that recipe has been well used over the years. It’s a fun one to make with children because they love rolling the dough into the requisite balls. Never mind that they also tend to get powdered sugar everywhere, that’s part of the sweet fun. 

Which brings me to the recipe I’m sharing today. Our Sunday FunDay host today is Sue of Palatable Pastime. She chose the theme of Midsummer Night’s Dream and encouraged us to celebrate by sharing recipes that would delight the faerie folk. 

I immediate started researching recipes online and found MANY for chocolate pixies. About 110,000,000 Google results, if you can imagine. That’s a lot of pixie cookie recipes! Turns out that I’ve been making a sort of chocolate pixie cookie for 26 years, just by another name. Who knew? 

Chocolate Pixies

This recipe makes four dozen cookies and was adapted from one on Big Oven. The dough freezes beautifully, if you don’t want to bake them all in the same day. 

Ingredients

For the cookie dough:

1/4 cup or 57g butter

4 oz or 113g unsweetened chocolate

2 cups or 250g flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups or 400g sugar

1/2 cup, finely chopped, or 53g pecans

3 eggs, lightly beaten

To coat dough before baking:

1 cup or 125g icing sugar

Method

Use a sharp knife to finely chop the pecans. 

In a microwavable bowl, melt butter and chocolate in the microwave in 15-20 seconds zaps, stirring in between, until both are completely melted and the mixture is smooth.

Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and stir to combine.  

Add in the sugar, chopped pecans and eggs. 

Stir till well combined. It will be quite a stiff dough and a good workout for your stirring arm. 

Cover the dough with cling film and press it down to make sure no air is touching the dough and refrigerate at least 1 hour for easier handling.

When you are ready to bake, preheat your oven to 300°F or 149°C and prepare two cookie sheets by lining them with baking parchment or silicone liners. 

Use a spoon or scoop to divide the dough into small pieces, a little smaller than a ping pong ball. 

Shape each piece into a ball and roll it in the icing sugar. 

Put them on a clean plate to catch the icing sugar that inevitably falls off as you transfer them. You don’t want that much on your cookie sheet. 

Place the balls 2 inches apart on your prepared cookie sheets. Still a little sugar on the pan, just not as much.

Bake in the preheated oven for 15-18 minutes or until edges are set, rotating the cookie sheets halfway through so they cook evenly.

Remove the chocolate pixies from the cookie sheets and place on wire racks to cool completely. 

Repeat the process until all the dough is rolled, sugared and baked into cookies.

Enjoy!

It’s Sunday FunDay and, as previously mentioned, we are celebrating A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Check out all the recipes below. Many thanks to our host, Sue of Palatable Pastime. 

• Magical Cookie Bars by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Butterfly Cupcakes by Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Chocolate Pixies by Food Lust People Love
• Magical Meringue Mushrooms: Queen Mab's Dining Table by Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Pixie Stix Candy Straws by Palatable Pastime
• Blueberry Lavender Mini Cheesecakes by Making Miracles
• Beetroot & Chocolate Mini Muffins by Mayuri's Jikoni
• Fruity Birthday Cake by Sneha's Recipe

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

Pin these Chocolate Pixies!

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