The short answer:
Each muffin will cost .19 if you make 24 muffins. If you make 42 muffins like my batch did then the muffins will cost .11 each.
The Long answer:
Breaking it down by ingredients and using Amazon.com for pricing...
18 cups of flour.
There are about 4 cups of flour to 1 pound of flour. So you would need a 5 pound bag of flour. The cheapest I found it online is $3.75 for a 5 pound bag of Hodgson Mill flour.
5 cups of sugar.
The best answer I can find is that there are about 2 cups of sugar to a pound. So a five pound bag of sugar will make 2 batches of muffin mix. Since we're only making one, we'll only need 1/2 the bag. The best price on Amazon is $2.75 for a five pound bag of Domino sugar.
2 1/4 cup powder buttermilk or powdered milk.
I found this bag of instant Non Fat Milk Powder from Barry Farm for $3.99 and the extra can be used for other cooking projects. While I don't like the taste of powder milk as a drink, it works fine in cooking.
Baking Soda and Salt
I can find baking soda and salt for about $1 a box. This is about all you will need for the recipe.
Cinnamon and nutmeg are a little pricier but I found them at the Dollar Store for $1 a bottle. You won't need that much of these 2 items.The cost to make the mix: About $16 to make.
Let's Make MUFFINS!
For actually making your ABC muffins (just plain old muffins, nothing fancy, no toppings) each batch of mix will make 5 batches of 24 muffins each.
Let's pretend I got motivated and made every batch! I would need:
20 eggs (4 eggs per single batch). You can buy 20 eggs for $4 (expensive eggs) at the grocery store. I don't have a good picture for eggs, sorry.
15 tsp vanilla extract. I highly suggest NOT using imitation. It tastes better with the REAL vanilla extract. That being said... Vanilla extract is a bit pricey so we'll go the poor people route and use imitation vanilla extract for $1 a bottle at the dollar store. I think I used 2 bottles. So $2 is the total.A side note: When out of vanilla extract, I have been known to use whiskey, vodka, other extracts or Disarono Amaretto Alcohol (The Disarono was the best muffin batch I ever had!).
2 Cups water... If you really want to get picky and break it down for the price of tap water, feel free. Mine is added into my rent so it's free!
1 cup Vegetable Oil...
If I bought this bottle of vegetable oil, there would be 24 cups of oil. If we divide $11.54 by the 24 cups, then our 1 cup of oil is .48
Of course if you are frugal, you probably won't be spending that much money on vegetable oil.
This brings our total (rounding) to $23 for 120 muffins. Or a cost of .19 (nineteen cents) per muffin.
While making the first batch of muffins, I managed to make 42 muffins instead of the 24 they say the batch makes. That means all 5 batches will make 210 muffins total. For a cost of .11 (eleven cents) per muffin!
If your ingredients cost less, then each muffin will cost less. With my last batch of muffins, I managed to get the cost of each muffin down to 7 cents each. Not bad! And very frugal!
