"Wow" Factor for Kids
In The Tightwad Gazette, Amy Dacyzyn introduced me to the concept of increasing the “wow” factor of kids’ snacks. That just means putting a little extra fun in ordinary homemade snacks. Kids think they want the special, expensive treats from the store, but mostly they are just happy with the “special.” You might want to use the “wow” factor for treats when your kids have formed an expectation of having store-bought or restaurant goodies on a more frequent basis that your budget will allow.
I’m going to start trying some ideas to put a little pizzazz in what we are having at home. Today, I put icing on some muffins to make them look more like fancy cupcakes.
Here is the original muffin: 
This is a Morning Glory Muffin.* Very tasty, and sort-of healthy. It tastes quite a bit like carrot cake. To me, there is nothing wrong with this muffin at all, but I’m not a kid. So to make them more special, I added a bit of cream cheese icing, like this:
The carrot was very easy to make. I used Wilton tips #12 and #233. The cream cheese icing was whipped up while the muffins were baking, and it took a few more minutes to color a little icing and put it in disposable bags with the tips.
These cupcakes got everyone’s attention! My tw0-year-old, of course, licked all the icing off first and asked for seconds. He’s an old enough toddler to understand that he couldn’t have another until he finished the rest of the muffin. He asked for that second muffin all day, but after playing in the wading pool in the evening, he was hungry enough to finish off the first muffin and start on another.
*I use the linked recipe for this muffin with a couple of changes. I use pecans instead of walnuts, and I add 1/2 cup of unsalted sunflower seeds. The recipe says it makes 12 servings, but I get 24 muffins out of the recipe. 
