These muffins here are not mediocre! They are fantastic. You can find the recipe for them here.
What we did yesterday as a demo and today as a lab was mediocre. I really was questioning whether or not I should blog about this lab, but my students convinced me that I should share my opinion about the new Duncan Hines whole wheat muffin mixes. So here goes.
Our first lab is usually making muffins using a mix. It is easy and a great way to get the students acquainted with the lab. I was unable to cook them because the purchase order had not been approved so we just moved on to something else. The purchase order came in this week. When you get approved to spend money you have to spend it. So I bought a new Duncan Hines whole wheat blueberry muffin and an apple cinnamon with oatmeal topping, also whole wheat.
I have used Duncan Hines bakery style blueberry muffins for year. They are good in a pinch. GI Joe who has very few cooking skills can even make them! And when someone else cooks them they are even better.
Anyway to get back to the original story, we had a great discussion yesterday about whole wheat flour. It does not last long and should be stored in the refrigerator for longer life. The boxed mixes expired May of this year. I was really surprised! Boxed mixes usually are good for a year. We talked calories! Wow, these babies have a whopping 240. The blueberry had 220 calories. These were not pretty muffins. They were rather flat. They did not have the pretty rounded tops . They took longer to cook than stated on the box in most of my ovens. Tastewise they were just Ok. The students like the strusel topping the best. Of course it is all sugar! Boxed mixes are expensive ! Making muffins from scratch is cheaper and so much better. You can control what goes in the muffin and you can add healthier choices for example fresh apple instead of sugary apple filling. The only good point is the 3 grams of fiber. I was very disappointed, but it was a good learning experience for all.
Here are the results for today’s cookoff. Vote for the one of your choice. By the way all the groups did a great job. The only travesty was one kitchen cooked theirs a little too long. Note a couple of groups brought their own muffin mix.
1st Block Kitchen 5
1st Block Kitchen 4
1st Block Kitchen 1
1st Block Kitchen 6
1st Block Kitchen 2
2nd Block Kitchen 5
2nd Block Kitchen 4
2nd Block Kitchen 2
2nd Blcok Kitchen 1
2nd Block Kitchen 6
2nd Block Kitchen 3
The Teacher Cooks 
2nd Block, Kitchen 2!
I like 2nd Block, Kitchen 5 muffins (I’m partial to blueberry).
I love a good muffin 🙂
Good info. It’s great you are pointing out all of the good and bad points on packaged mixes. The students really need this!
I like kitchen 5. 2 period
I vote for 2nd block kitchen 5
1st block, kitchen 1
Neat and tidy. Good photo.
kitchen 5 1st period.. they were yummy!!!
Despite not having any kind of filling in mine just the plain mix was EXTREMELY tasty.
these were some tasty muffins 🙂
Oh I loved making these muffins (: My favorite part had to be the strousel! It’s fattening but DELICIOUS (:
This was a great lab! I really already knew how to make muffins from a box, but it was still fun! 🙂
Muffins are the best !
I absolutely loved this muffins. I know there are not every healthy but still good. I could not help but eat more than one.
These muffins sure were delicious its funny how I was full from one but yet I kept eating them.
these were fun and yummy but really messy.
Muffins were a lot of fun to make & they were so delicious!!(:
These muffins were really good!! I had fun making them!! 🙂
o my gosh these muffins were delicious!!! i’m going to make these at home!!
These were soooo good! I loved making them, they were so simple:)
the blueberry muffins were very good! especially the topping!
the muffins look good and were fun to make
Thats a lot of blue berrys wow.
they all look good and were very easy cooking them
muffins are soo good!
Muffins look amazingly good…
So sorry i was absent
looks like it was alot of fun!!!
I loved the blueberry ones! They were perfect for breakfast.
omggg…. the blueberry muffins were so delicious 🙂
The blueberry muffins were Amazing. 🙂
this was fun in class 🙂
These muffins were delicious! They were super easy to make too.
These were good but not great. I was a little sad about that.
really nice. hope it taste as good as it looks. :))
Muffins were fun to make…but not very tasty.
These muffins were really good.
these look yummy!
these muffins were awesome
those muffins were so good. that was perfect for a 2nd period snack:)