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Morning glory muffins are sweet, moist, and ideal for busy mornings! Pair them with a mug of your favorite coffee for the perfect on-the-go breakfast.
Are you a muffin kind of person? I totally am, but most of the time, I prefer muffin tops.
Yep, I’m the girl at Starbucks ordering one of their giant blueberry muffins and tossing the entire bottom of the muffin into the trash. It’s wasteful, I know.
I’ve tried to pawn the muffin bottoms off on Elle by over-exaggerating their level of deliciousness, but the girl knows what’s up; she’s not having it.
Then there are the muffins at our local grocery store that are to die for good! Okay, that’s a minor exaggeration, but you feel me, right?
Their pistachio muffins are LOADED with chopped pistachios and topped with a ridiculous amount of sparkling sugar. But guess what, once that crunchy sugar and perfectly golden top are gone, I’m out.
My husband does the same thing, only with chocolate glazed donuts. He slices them in half like a bagel so he can simply enjoy all that chocolate frosting goodness with a wee little bit of donut. I’m typically intercepting him on the way to the trash like, ummm, gimme that. Because carbs.
There are a few muffins that I’ll enjoy in their entirety and one of them happens to be these morning glory muffins.
What are morning glory muffins?
If you’ve never had morning glory muffins, let me be the first to tell you that you’re missing out.
Morning glory muffins are apparently named for the cafe in Nantucket where they were first created. The original recipe included carrots, apples, raisins, pecans, coconut, and cinnamon.
My recipe has a lot of those original ingredients with a few swaps. Mine are made in part with whole wheat flour for nuttiness and have tons of applesauce and grated apples, carrots, zucchini, pineapple, coconut, and pecans.
Yeah, we’re talking about all kinds of flavor and texture in these delicious muffins!
Morning glory muffins are sure to be a hit with fans of apple cinnamon muffins, fans of carrot cake, fans of hummingbird cupcakes…heck, even fans of bran muffins will like these!
Whether you’re whipping these morning glory muffins up to share with the family on a chilly morning or as a breakfast treat for your co-workers, I promise they’ll enjoy every single bite from muffin top to muffin bottom!
How to make morning glory muffins
All of the fruits and vegetables in morning glory muffins make for a longer ingredient list than normal, but don’t let that intimidate you. These muffins are as easy as pie (or, well, muffins) to make!
Key ingredients
This recipe has all of the typical muffin ingredients like eggs, granulated sugar, baking soda, vanilla, etc. But there are a handful of ingredients that help to set these muffins apart:
Whole wheat flour: I don’t bake with whole wheat flour a lot, but it’s a great addition to morning glory muffins. Using a mix of whole wheat and all-purpose flour gives these muffins a nuttiness that pairs well with the other ingredients.
Feel free to use a total of 2 ¾ cup all-purpose flour in place of the all-purpose/whole wheat mix if you don’t have whole wheat flour on hand.
Applesauce: Applesauce is a great ingredient when baking, especially in muffins and quick bread recipes, such as applesauce bread. It adds flavor and moisture, keeping these muffins from needing a lot of oil or fat.
I like to use unsweetened applesauce, but feel free to use sweetened applesauce if you prefer sweeter muffins.
Grated carrots and zucchini: Nothing like sneaking veggies into your kids via muffins, right? Parents of vegetable-hating kids will know what I mean. This recipe has a full cup of grated carrots and a cup of grated zucchini, adding flavor and nutrients to the muffins.
Grated apple: Yes, there’s already applesauce in these morning glory muffins, but some grated apple adds a different texture.
Crushed pineapple: If you’ve made J. Alexander’s carrot cake, then you know how well carrots and pineapple go together! Crushed pineapple adds a nice acidity to the muffins and even more moisture.
Flaked coconut: The original morning glory muffins included coconut and I definitely couldn’t skip it – I love coconut! Like the applesauce, you can use sweetened or unsweetened coconut, depending on how sweet you’d like the final muffins to be.
Pecans: Chopped pecans add to the nuttiness of the recipe and also give the muffins some great texture. Feel free to follow my directions on how to toast nuts if you’d like to toast the pecans before adding them to the batter.
Making this recipe
Once your ingredients are prepped and ready, making these morning glory muffins is pretty similar to most muffin and quick bread recipes.
This recipe makes 18 muffins, so prep 18 muffin cups by either greasing them or lining them with paper liners.
In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients until combined: both of the flours, the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt.
In a separate bowl, combine the eggs, applesauce, oil, and vanilla. Add in the carrots, zucchini, grated apple, pineapple, coconut, and pecans.
Add all of the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Divide the batter between the prepped muffin cups and bake for 20-24 minutes.
Let the muffins cool for about 5 minutes in the pan before moving them to a cooling rack.
Storage tips
These muffins are best the day they’re made, but you can keep them in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days.
If you want longer-term storage, I recommend freezing them. Place them in a zip-top freezer bag and freeze for up to a month.
When you’re ready to enjoy a muffin for your breakfast or an afternoon snack, microwave for 30-60 seconds to thaw.
More fabulous muffin recipes
If these morning glory muffins made you want to have muffins at the ready all of the time? Check out these other great muffin recipes:
Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
Blueberry Crumb Muffins
Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
Pumpkin Muffins
Chai Muffins
Banana Oat Muffins
Coffee Cake Muffins
Morning Glory Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ¼ cups whole wheat flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 3 large eggs
- ¾ cup applesauce see notes
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup grated carrots
- 1 cup grated zucchini
- ½ cup peeled and grated apple from about 1 medium apple
- 1 8-ounce can crushed pineapple drained
- ½ cup flaked coconut see notes
- ⅓ cup coarsely chopped pecans
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease or line 18 muffin cups with paper liners.
- In a large bowl, combine flours, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda and kosher salt. Whisk the dry ingredients until thoroughly combined.
- In another bowl, combine the eggs, applesauce, vegetable oil and vanilla. Stir in carrots, zucchini, apple, pineapple, coconut and pecans.
- Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix until thoroughly combined, but do not overmix.
- Divide batter evenly between the prepared muffin cups. Bake in preheated oven for 20-24 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Allow muffins to cool in the pan for about 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Where did you find those cupcake liners?
Look good! Would you be able to tell me if you use about 1 carrot and 1 zucchini? And do you add the dry ingredients after mixing all the wet? Thank you. New to cooking, I was hoping someone else would ask cause they are not smart ques!
Claire-
The approximations for the zucchini and carrots are going to vary depending on the size of the vegetables. For me, one zucchini and 2 1/2 carrots did the trick, but again this will vary. Yes, combine the wet and dry ingredients. I changed the directions to be a bit more specific about this. Happy Baking!!!
-Jamie
I LOVE those muffin liners!! The muffins sound simply amazing…I can’t wait to try this recipe. I especially love the additional of pineapple.
I recently found your blog (through tastespotting, maybe)…your recipes and photos are outstandung!
Kelli-
Thanks for stopping by and for you kind words about My Baking Addiction; I hope you continue to visit. The liners are from Michael’s and are a Wilton product.
-Jamie
I love the adorable muffin papers… they came like that? you didn’t fold them over on your own? so so cute! and the muffins look scrumptious
Clare-
They are from Michael’s and are a Wilton product. Yes, they came as pictured.
-Jamie
I get pretty tired of sweet muffins but I loooooooove morning glory muffins! Such cute muffin liners too.
I love the muffin cups! They’re adorable!
Muffin skirts! Love them.
Those paper cups are darling! Where ever did you find them. (I’m hoping you are going to say Walmart…though I know it can’t be true!)
YUM! Thank you for posting this, Jamie! I can’t wait to make ’em!
How funny.. I made ‘Good Morning Muffins’ on Saturday morning as well! Yours have many more veggies and fruits than mine (and your cupcake liners are waaay cuter!), but we were so on the same baking wave length or something this weekend!