Multitasking With Muffin Trays

Great ideas are made to be shared, particularly when the tips make life easier. The following ideas are used in your kitchen, garden, living room and outdoors. Please share if you have any we have left out!

Most homes have muffin trays, and sometimes they have seen better days. Rather than throwing them out, repurpose them and use them for more than just baking!

Serving snacks and condiments:

Next time you are feeding a group of children, serve snack in a muffin pan. It looks fantastic and they can help themselves. It also means that crackers or pretzels won’t get soggy on a plate with fruit or vegetables, and you can replenish popular items easily.

You can also fill them with condiments at a BBQ, rather than filling a table with various bottles and jars.

Use mini muffin tins to make interesting shapes ice blocks – freeze a slice of lemon, lime or orange for a tasty addition to your favourite tipple – it also saves waste – cutting a whole lemon for a single slice in a drink.

Blend a smoothie ahead of time, and then freeze any leftovers in a muffin tray. Choose a portion size that suits you and you’ll have a healthy snack readily available.

Away from the kitchen, muffin tins are great organisers – if you have a tin that is looking a bit the worse for wear, paint it and use it in a desk drawer to hold small items like drawing pins, paper clips etc. They are also useful in the garage for small screws, nails or loose trinkets which need a home.

In the garden, muffin tins can be used to mark out grid for planting (press them, bottom first onto prepared earth, they will leave circles to organise your garden when you are planting seeds.

Alternatively, recycle an old muffin tin into a mini planter – poke holes in the back of each muffin cup using an awl or drill. Then, add soil, rocks, and plants. Water each one lightly to create a mini planter.