Holiday Challenge #1

I am participating in Hip2Save's holiday challenges. This week’s challenge focuses on preparing breakfast foods (i.e. breads, muffins, and pancakes) that can be placed in your freezer and used at a later time. I'm love to cook, but am not much of a baker, so this one was interested for me. I still was not 100% satisfied with how it turned out, but this kids LOVED it! :)

Collin did 3 different recipes. Now, we did not have to use her recipes however I did use the ones she found for the blueberry muffins and zucchini pumpkin bread. I will post all the recipes I used.

I made a mixture of blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes, apple and blueberry muffins, 3 mini-loaves of pumpkin zucchini bread, and I also made 12 mini pizza kits to freeze for later. I made 6 whole wheat and 6 white.

I also had an adorable helper! She LOVED cooking!



The recipes are:

1. Zucchini Pumpkin Bread

2. Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins

3. Apple Cinnamon Muffins


The next portion is some freezer cooking tips. I did get these all from Collin over at Hip2Save!

Need some tips on freezing bread, muffins and pancakes? Check out these tips and tricks below…

* Allow breads to cool completely before placing them in the freezer.

* Be sure to press out as much excess air from the bag.

* If you are planning to leave your bread in the freezer longer than a month or two, wrap the bread in heavy duty aluminum and then place it in a plastic bag (you can then leave the bread in the freezer for up to 4 months).

* When you are ready to use the bread, take it out of the freezer and allow it to thaw on the counter at room temperature (this usually takes about 3 hours).

* Stack pancakes between sheets of wax paper and slide them all into a plastic bag for freezing (consider using an old bread/bagel bag versus a new Ziploc bag). Store them in the freezer for up to 3 months. When you are ready to use them, take them directly from the freezer to a preheated oven and bake 2-3 minutes.

* Place trays of muffins in the freezer until firm and then transfer them to a Ziploc bag for freezing. Muffins can be stored in the freezer from 6 to 12 months. Muffin batter can be frozen right in the tins for up to 3 weeks for later baking.

* Consider flash freezing muffins (i.e. place individual muffins on a tray in the freezer, freeze them until they are firm and then store them in more space-efficient freezer bag).

* Always label bags with the date.