Morning Glory Muffins

Morning Glory muffins by BakeSlave | Nat Yusop

There  was a cocoa crisis egg embargo sugar shortage massive case of baking inertia that afflicted yours truly. I haven’t a whisper of a whisk’s excuse for neglecting my oven for a month, and for that, I am sorry.

Seeing how I seem to have some difficulty with my movement, there is no better remedy to get me going with the baking, than Morning Glory muffins (which in my household, is also known as everything-but-the-kitchen-sink muffins).

Why “everything but the kitchen sink”?

You can lob in anything from your pantry: dried fruits (apricots, cranberries, raisins, dates) and nuts to the grated apples and carrots (and zucchinis too if so inclined). Make it more forgiving by replacing all purpose flour with whole wheat flour, and ditch sugar for honey.

The Morning Glory muffins are epic in nutritional value.

If that combo doesn’t move you (literally and figuratively), I don’t know what else will.

First measure the dry mix ingredients for the Morning Glory muffins, and then whisk to mix the flour mixture evenly.

I used the recipe from King Arthur Flour with some minor tweaks.

You will need three separate mixing receptacles, a whisk and a grater (if like me, you want to keep it low tech). I will not judge you by how you process your carrots and apple.

Dry mix

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup loosely packed brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Next sort out the fruit and veg mix. Talk about hyper fibre!

Fruit and veg mix

• 8 oz carrots (peeled and grated)
• 1 large tart apple (cored and grated, peel left on)
• 1/2 cup roughly chopped dried apricots and dates
• 1/2 cup toasted chopped hazelnuts
• 1/3 cup wheat germ
• 1/2 cup mixed citrus peels

Then get the liquids into one bowl (not pictured here) and whisk to combine.

Wet mix

• 3 large eggs
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup orange juice

Morning Glory muffins – make them!

I almost forgot the cardinal step before the mise en place is assembled: when the germ of an idea for a bake even begins to blossom, preheat the oven to 190°C. Then line your muffin pans (makes about 12 large-ish and then some, more on that later).

To the bowl of the flour mixture, stir in the fruits and veg mix. Then add in the whisked wet ingredients to the flour mixture until evenly combined.

Gloopy final batter. Yes, there was a fourth bowl. Busted!

You will get a gloopy batter with bits and bobs so use an ice-cream scoop to divvy up the batter. Note: fill to the brim, not 2/3 full as per traditional muffins.

I didn’t put in corn, but I sure as heck was humming Brimful of Asha when I did this.

The Morning Glory muffins take about 25 minutes in the oven. I normally bung them in for the first 10 minutes unchecked, then take the pans out to switch sides and rotate (because my oven bakes unevenly). Then at the 20th minute, they get a pick inserted to test for “doneness”. Needless to day, depending on how your oven behaves, the muffins can be baked for 25 to 30 minutes, OR, until they’re nicely domed and a pick/cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

Don’t dive into the muffins yet! After you remove them from the oven, allow them to cool on the rack for at least 5 minutes in the pan (where they still continue to bake from the residual heat). Then you should be able to handle them without yelping to turn them out of the pans until cooled completely.

Fresh from the oven, cooling on the rack

My yield was 12 large-ish muffins……and 7 smaller, significantly more tanned ones – boggy baking brain forgot that those with the smaller surface area needed less time in the oven.

* sheepish grin *

Morning Glory Muffins

Happy Baking !