For this #LockdownLearning activity the theme is arable farming, which means growing crops such as wheat, oilseed rape, potatoes, sugar beet, barley, and legumes such as peas. 

Why not have a go at baking these tasty muffins that use three different ingredients grown on British farms: Wheat, oats and rapeseed.

With the children still at home, we’ve adapted the recipe to incorporate links to the National Curriculum to help you improve your children’s maths skills while you bake, and make learning as fun as possible!

Ingredients

• 130g plain flour
• 40g rolled oats
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp rapeseed oil
• 5 tbsp semi-skimmed milk
• 2 tbsp golden syrup
• 1 medium carrot
• 1 banana (okay, maybe not British, but try and buy Fairtrade bananas if you can, to make sure banana farmers are paid a better price)

Psst, don’t forget to look for the Red Tractor and British flag when you shop to be sure you’re buying high quality, British products.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C / gas mark 5.
2. Measure out the dry ingredients. Take the opportunity to look at the scales and work out where the dial needs to be for each ingredient. Encourage the children to feel the weight of a large bag of flour and compare that to the amount that they need for this recipe. This helps children to visualise what they need to do when converting between grams and kilograms.
3. Stir all the dry ingredients together and make a well in the middle.
4. Crack an egg carefully into a separate bowl – why not have a discussion about where eggs come from, and emphasise the importance of washing hands after working with raw eggs.
5. Whisk the egg together with the rapeseed oil. You might like to check out this page to learn more about what rapeseed looks like and where the oil comes from.
6. Peel and mash the banana until smooth and add it to the wet ingredients.
7. Measure the milk accurately and add it to the wet ingredients. You could get your children to look at the scale on the measuring jug and work out where the liquid level needs to be.
8. Stir the golden syrup into the wet ingredients.
9. Grate your carrot and add it to the wet ingredients.
10. Combine the wet and dry ingredients into a smooth batter. Take care not to over mix.
11. Spoon your batter into 6 muffin cases.
12. Bake for 20 minutes or until your muffins are golden brown.
13. While the muffins are baking, discuss what you would need to do if you wanted to make 12 muffins. What about 3 muffins?
14. Once the muffins have cooled, give the children the chance to taste and evaluate their work. What would they do differently next time to improve their final outcome?

We’d love to see the end product of your cooking creations. Let us know how you get on by dropping us an email to letstalkfarming@nfu.org.uk

Explore

Discover more fun activities and videos by farmers and chefs in our #LockdownLearning Hub.