Baby Friendly Pumpkin Muffins

In this blog post: Recipe for Baby Friendly Pumpkin muffins, plus lots of cute pictures of Madeleine.

Feeding my 9 month old baby food has been one of the greatest joys of my life. We’d planned on breastfeeding but my milk never came in 🙁 Once that hit me, I kept reminding myself that formula wouldn’t be forever and one day formula vs breastmilk would be irrelevant because she’d be eating food. Obviously at 9 months she still relies primarily on formula, but my goodness it’s been a delight to have her sitting in the high chair next to us for meals.

I’d always planned on doing baby led weaning – that is, the practice of letting baby eat baby-sized portions of whatever we’re eating. But then… you know, global pandemic, and I needed to cut out whatever anxieties I could find in my life. We subscribed to Little Spoon (10/10 recommend if you can afford it) until I was brave enough to give her chunks of food to smash between her gums.

After realizing that she was 100% able to chew things with her gums and two little bottom teeth (they are SO CUTE, y’all!) I slowly started giving her the parts of our meals that I was comfortable with. Taco night? Homegirl gets beans, rice, avocado, tomato and a few olives. Tuna sandwiches? A pile of skipjack tuna (she loves it, it’s so weird) and a side of pickles, usually with some avocado to smash eat. But then I found a can of clearance organic pumpkin puree and took it home, thinking “what can I do with this for Madeleine?”

Even though we’re not full on BLW people (not to be confused with BLM, which we 100% ARE full on), I looked up “baby led weaning pumpkin” and then saw MUFFINS at the end. THEN I clicked on the link and saw that basically you throw everything into a blender and I was SOLD.

One day while Madeleine was destroying eating the aforementioned meal of tuna, pickles + avocado, I decided to give these baby friendly pumpkin muffins a go. I never knew how much I wanted to wake up and eat a muffin with my baby until I was reading this recipe.

These muffins are – brace yourself – moist, tasty, and super easy. Oh, and 100% Madeleine approved.

Half of the photos I took for this post were pictures of Madeleine destroying her lunch. This blog doesn’t have enough pictures of her and she is a treasure.

Dairy + Gluten-free + Baby friendly Pumpkin Muffins

(Originally found here)

Ingredients

• 1 cup of old-fashioned oats
• 1 banana
• 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 egg
• 3 tbs maple syrup
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tin  (original recipe called for mini muffins but I didn’t have any and made do by just filling the cups halfway).
Pour all ingredients in a blender, and then blend until the oats are blended and mixed. Pour into the tin (I did about halfway full) and bake for 10 minutes.

I rip these muffins into little chunks for Madeleine and she LOVES THEM. We made a double batch (and to be honest, we just used the whole can of pumpkin because you can never have enough pumpkin) and I planned on freezing some, but we ate them before we could do that. They’re honestly THAT good, you guys.

Like I said, these are baby friendly but also very tasty for the grown ups who make them. And because it’s basically measure, pour & blend the dishes are very minimal.

also… this makes me want a pumpkin spice latte SO BAD. Anyone else, or just me?

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