My Morning Glory Muffins

Have I told you that I love scones, bread, cookies, and muffins. Oh, muffins. Muffins are for mornings. Other baked goods, I can take ’em or leave ’em. These muffins though. Next level. I had them at a coffee shop in Seattle years ago and have been trying to recreate them ever since. I think I’m close? But I’ll never quite know. They are literally my favorite breakfast. If I make them just right they taste like carrot cake, in muffin form. I’m not big on cake but I sure love carrot cake! These are simple, three bowls, but totally worth it. They even have fruits and vegetables in them, so they are a full balanced meal, in my opinion.

So, I recently got this puppy. He is the best boy. I especially love that he likes to get up every morning at 530am. Even weekends. Aren’t I lucky? He wakes up ready for the day. So… I have had the opportunity to do a lot of early morning baking lately. Sigh, lucky me. What is sleeping in? I can’t remember. This is a breakfast of champions. Just add a full pot of coffee.

Ingredients:

• 2 carrots, grated
• 1 apple, grated
• 1/4 c shredded coconut
• 1/2 c chopped walnuts
• 1/2 c golden raisins (now I like golden raisins and I do not really care for regular purple raisins in baked goods, but it is up to you and if that’s what you have use them. Alas this batch I had to use regular raisins. I have also subbed in craisens)
• 2 very ripe brown bananas
• 1 egg
• 1/4 c coconut oil- melted
• 1 t vanilla
• 1/2 c orange juice
• 1 1/2 c flour ( I have played with gluten free options and other flours. Sometimes its works and sometimes it throws off the texture, if you use whole wheat flour use slightly less)
• 3/4 c brown sugar
• zest of one orange ( you can use dried orange peel but my preference is always fresh zest)
• 1 T baking powder
• 2 t baking soda
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1/4 t ground ginger
• 1/4 t nutmeg
• 1/4 t cardamom (do not omit this!!!! it gives it an extra warm lovely flavor)

Turn your oven on to 375 degrees and spray or grease your muffin tins. I typically get 16 muffins from this recipe. Grate your carrots and apple. If you are feeling lazy use your food processor. Then combine your grated carrot, apple, chopped walnuts, coconut, and raisins in one bowl. In another bowl mash your bananas, add your egg, vanilla, brown sugar, melted coconut oil, and orange zest + juice. In your third bowl (your largest bowl) combine all your dry ingredients and stir with a fork. Stir in your carrotty, apply, walnutty, coconutty, raisiny mixture into your dry ingredients until everything is coated. Fold your wet ingredients in and mix until just combined. Don’t over mix. The dough will be sticky. Divide equally between muffin cups. I have some silicone muffin cups that I sometimes like to use too. Heap them to the top but don’t fill above the top of the muffin tin or they simply won’t puff up correctly.

Bake the first 10 minutes at 375 degrees, then lower to 350 degrees and bake additional 10 minutes. Unfortunately after this you do tend to have to go minute to minute until a toothpick comes out clean. If overdone these tend to get gummy. They will have a lovely soft texture when the toothpick comes out clean. 23 minutes is typically my magic number but I live in a dry place, at 4,000 ft, and I have a mixed gas and electric oven.

Let the muffins cool for a few minutes before removing them from the tin. Enjoy! Munch on these and you’ll be ready to play fetch on repeat…for hours.

Eat breakfast, change the world, be smart, stay safe, wash your hands, don’t touch your face.

I’m getting bossy, aren’t I?