Never trust pink icing

A while back we subscribed to the Dora the Explorer little cooks magazine.  Its had a bit of a shaky start thanks to missing deliveries and broken free gifts, but otherwise its pretty good.  Unfortunately, the small one is rather set in her ways so trying to get her to try a new recipe often requires more ability than I possess (which is why we made chocolate cake every Wednesday for weeks on end).   As a result, we have made the same recipe for Dora muffins 4 times now with slight variations on the recipe each time.  This is todays effort, and very little like the original (sorry Dora).

Dry stuff - wet stuff - make some muffins << repeat >>

I understand that title will mean nothing to those who haven't felt like their head may explode listening to Dora on tv.

For the muffin:

100g self raising flour

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 egg

75 ml milk

handful of raspberries

white chocolate bar

30g golden caster sugar

For the frosting:

tbsp soft cheese

tbsp butter (softened)

food colouring

vanilla extract

icing sugar

lots and lot of cleaning equipment

My fan oven temperature : 160

Prepare and weigh all the ingredients in advance.  I find my daughter has the patience of a die hard shopper on next sale day so this works best with her.  It also gives her the chance to do her "comedy" which way does the spoon go routine.

Chop the white chocolate in to chunks until you have a good handful (or more - depends how much you like your chocolate) but leave some to finish.

Whisk the egg in a jug and add the milk and oil.

In another bowl add the flour, sugar, chocolate and raspberries, and stir.  Add the wet ingredients in to the dry and mix together with a fork.

Now this isn't the method I would use with a recipe aimed at older children or adults, but this thing is getting mixed to death so throwing it all together means you wont have something that resembles a rock once cooked.  You also get mushy raspberries which are hilarious.  Apparently.

Divide between 4 muffin cases and cook for about 15 - 20 minutes.

Once cool mix together the soft cheese, vanilla and butter.   Then add enough icing sugar to thicken.  Ask your child what colour icing they would like, even though you already know the answer (in our world, everything is pink) and turn the frosting a horribly unnatural colour.  Hand the icing over to the child who will splodge it all over the cake, all over themselves and all over every work surface you can see.

Top with grated white chocolate and shove in the fridge for 10 minutes to allow the frosting to set a little.

Wonder why you bothered to make muffins since your child is only interested in licking off the frosting.  Hey ho.