Baking

Recently in OT a few of our regular residents worked as a team to make wonderful muffins for tea time.

Baking is an amazingly therapeutic activity.  In the elderly it is associated with a lot of memories.  All of us has some memories of baking or cooking or being part of a baking activity or just tasting or smelling the baking goods.  If you are young and only bake every now and then, it can bring back memories from your grandmother's kitchen and the memories you made together or for most of the residents in our care centre, it can bring back memories from their own baking experiences in their kitchens.

It's also very therapeutic in the sense that it is very stimulating and involves most of your senses.  Combine it with some music in the background and there is not a sense that isn't involved.  Most of the time when we do baking, the ingredients get eaten up before the actual baking even happens, but we always end up with a nice end-product that they can have with their tea or coffee later.

Today's baking was run my one OTT, Dinah, and they made meaty muffins for tea time.

 June Lane mixing the ingredients.

Lorna Smith preparing the muffin pans.

Dinah the OTT assisting Cecily Ryder to read the recipe.

And the end product :)

Here is the recipe:

Meaty Muffins:

Ingredients:

• 200g mincemeat
• salt and pepper
• oil for frying
• 500ml (2 cups) cake flour
• 10ml (2 teaspoons) baking powder
• 5ml (1 teaspoon) salt
• 250ml (1 cup) cheese, grated
• 2 eggs 
• 250ml (1cup) milk
• 20ml (4 teaspoons) oil

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C 

Spray two muffin pans with non-stick spray 

Season the mince with salt and pepper

Heat the oil and fry the mince until cooked 

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together in a mixing bowl

Add the cheese and mix well

Beat the eggs, milk and oil together and add to the flour mixture, stirring until just mixed

Fill the muffin pan hollows halfway with half the muffin mixture

Spoon a little mince on top, followed by the remaining muffins mixture

Bake for 20 minutes until well risen and brown

Makes 24 muffins