Morning Glory Muffins are not something I have encountered before. But my sister Margaret, of Ottawa, suggested them so I imagine she rather enjoys them. I did some research on the internet and looked at a few videos. It seems that there are many variations of these muffins, but the constant is grated carrot and grated apple and some nuts and raisins. So for mine I included all of those, choosing chopped walnuts for the crunch factor. I also decided upon some dessicated coconut and crushed, drained pineapple. That seemed to me to be a nice selection of flavours, enough to tempt even the most ardent doubter. Some recipes also included nutmeg, mac and allspice as well as cinnamon but I decided that cinnamon would probably be enough of a spice flavour. I didn’t want to overpower the other ingredients.
These muffins are, apparently often eaten at breakfast time. I am sure that would be good, though I usually stick with my muesli, so I shall be eating the muffins at another time of day. Of course I will include my obligatory cup of tea to accompany them.
As with all muffins this is an easy recipe and takes no time to put together, once you have assembled the ingredients. The most time taken, in fact, is the grating of the carrots and apple. As these muffins seem to be a North American thing all the recipes I found had measurements in cups but I have stayed with metric measurements since I am more comfortable with those, and they seem more accurate.
I had the option, with the amount of mixture, to make 14 or 15 muffins, or to go with larger muffins and just make 12. In the event I opted to make just 12 large ones. This also meant that the baking time was slightly open-ended. I thought 20 to 25 minutes would be enough. So I checked them after 20 minutes and although a skewer came out fairly clean it was a little be wet. So I left them in for a further 5 minutes and then checked again. They were still a little wet and this time crumbs attached to the skewer. So a further 5 minutes, making 30 in total, was allowed and they came out perfectly cooked.
They looked great and I could hardly wait for them to cool before tasting them, but I held off, as I watched England beat South Africa in the fourth Test Match(cricket) at The Wanderers in Johannesburg, SA.
Once they had cooled I removed the paper case and broke one in half, a lovely moist centre appeared, full of that fruity goodness. I am glad I didn’t opt for more than just cinnamon, that flavour compliments all the others just perfectly. These are a tasty treat indeed, and deserve to be more widely known about.
Ingredients:
- 260g plain flour
- 250g caster sugar
- 2tsp ground cinnamon
- 2tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 50g chopped walnuts
- 60g raisins
- 35g dessicated, shredded or flaked coconut
- 170g grated carrot
- 1 grated apple
- 100g crushed pineapple, drained
- 3 medium eggs
- 240ml vegetable oil
- 2tsp vanilla extract
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/350F
- Grease a 12 hole muffin tin, or line with paper cases. (you can do 15 if you don’t want large muffins)
- Place the flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking soda in a large bowl and stir to distribute evenly.
- Add the walnuts, raisins, coconut, carrot, apple and pineapple and mix together until all is evenly distributed.
- In a separate bowl whisk the eggs, vanilla extract and oil together to combine.
- Pour the wet mixture into all the other ingredients and stir until all is combined, but do not over mix.
- Fill the muffin cases to the top(if you want 12 large ones) or two thirds full(if you want about 15 muffins),
- Place in the preheated oven and bake for 25 minutes, check with a skewer to see if they are down, with the skewer coming out clean. If not leave for a few more minutes until the skewer comes out clean. Mine took exactly 30 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.