Mess-Free Muffins: No Mixing Bowl Required

In my opinion, the greatest food hacks are the ones that help you cut way, way down on dishwashing. That's especially true when it comes to baked goods, which usually involves dirtying up a couple of mixing bowls, measuring cups and spoons, some kind of stirring implement, and the baking pan itself.

Over at Yammie's Noshery, the Yammie in question came up with a recipe for banana bread muffins that requires only one measuring spoon and one measuring cup. All the ingredient proportions are based on either ¼ of a teaspoon or ½ a cup.

Any recipe that only requires dirtying a couple of items is tops in my book.

You simply put all of the ingredients in a ziplock plastic bag and mash them around until they're thoroughly mixed together. Then, snip a small corner (make sure it's small, since the batter will be runny) off the end of the bag and dispense it into the muffin cups.

You can get the full recipe for banana bread muffins here.

Cut and pour. Easy peasy.

Only 2 things needed washed for these muffins.

Cut and pour. Easy peasy.

Only 2 things needed washed for these muffins.

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If you don't have a cupcake pan handy, never fear: there are ways to make your own.

This hack would also work well with other pastry-related items like icing and pancake batter, too. Plus, putting it in a plastic bag makes it easy to dispense the icing/batter in fancy shapes without investing in other tools.

You could attach a decorating bag tip (those metal nibs that help you make special shapes) if you want to get even fancies.

Pancakes in a bag. 'Nuff said.

You could attach a decorating bag tip (those metal nibs that help you make special shapes) if you want to get even fancies.

Pancakes in a bag. 'Nuff said.

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One more tip: if you're of the waste-not-want-not school of cooking, there's no need to break out a brand-new plastic bag just for this hack. I tend to reuse and even re-wash plastic bags multiple times. I'd pick out a bag that was just about on its last legs to use for this trick—as long as it didn't have any holes in it, of course.

Want another great tip for no-fuss baking? Learn how to mix and make a single-serving brownie in a coffee mug.