Morning Glory Muffins
Posted by Julieandcharles on Jul 22, 2011 in Appetizer/Sauce, Dessert, Recipes, Tips and Tricks | 40 comments
This recipe was handed down to my mother shortly after our family moved to Tennessee in the early 1970s. She got it from our neighbor just up the street, Mrs. Marylee Roseberry, who was simply a gift to mankind. She was welcoming and had such a warm disposition. Honestly, I can’t tell you how much it meant to my mother to have Mrs. Marylee up the street. I spent countless hours at her house and she was quite the culinary guru. In fact, as I write this blog, I seem to recall that she self treated her husband’s diabetes with diet for over 25 years. This was back when they called it adult onset diabetes (since it only occurred in adults). Guess we know how that whole story turned out.
I digress. My mother handed this recipe to me shortly after I graduated from college. I still have the one she passed on to me (a copy fo the original recipe that Marylee wrote out for mother all those years ago). Obviously, I have had to make a few very small tweaks for our version to make it a bit more paleo/primal friendly.
Now, these are tasty and delicious. They are also something you shouldn’t be eating every day (think dessert or reward for a hard day’s work). That said, they are a great travel snack and have been just the thing to feed my 16 year old while he is working in the fields for my brother this summer. Bless his heart…I can’t shovel enough food in that boy at the moment. Now he has a travel sized snack that won’t spoil in the heat of the day. Dylan was kind enough to give us a taste testing endorsement on my recent trip to Tennessee.
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups almond flour
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups carrots, peeled and grated
1 large apple, peeled, cored and grated
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup raisins
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons honey (optional)
1/2 cup coconut or olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a standard-sized muffin pan.
2. Combine almond flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Add carrot, apple, coconut and raisins and combine well.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs, honey, oil and vanilla extract together.
4. Pour the wet mixture over the dry ingredients and mix very well. The batter will be very thick.
5. Spoon the batter out into muffin pan and place on upper or middle rack of your oven for 40-50 minutes.
6. When a toothpick inserted into the top of a muffin comes out clean, the muffins are done.
7. Cool muffins in the pan for 8-10 minutes and then remove to a rack to finish cooling.
**If you are looking for variety, sub out currants or chopped dates for the raisins. You can also add a little orange zest to give them a bit more citrus flavor.
What the finished product looks like (straight from the book)! Click on the image for a better look!
Oh these sounds perfect!
What a great sounding muffin. Thanks for sharing.
How many muffins does the recipe yield? My guess is a dozen.
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Thanks
@ Jennifer…yes, 1 dozen. You might get to a baker’s dozen if your eggs are really big…or just lick the heck out of a spoon.
My 13 year old is a bottomless pit, but also has problems with quite a few textures (like raisins). It’s SO hard to get him to eat a variety of foods. Do you think that some semi-sweet dark chocolate chips would work instead of the raisins? (I know it’s not quite as natural, but I have to find a way to get those carrots, etc into him somehow!) Or maybe blueberries?
I just got done eating the first one right out of the oven and they are so good! Thanks for posting this delicious recipe!
I made these before I took my daughter to her guitar lesson. When I returned, I discovered my 8 year old granddaughter had already eaten 2 of them! They are delicious! Thanks for the recipe!
Thanks for posting these to try. I made without the optional honey, and left out the coconut (textural issues)… mild but tasty. I hope these are indicative of the recipes in your book. Because if it is, I’m really waiting with baited breath now!!
My mom used to make these for me when I was little! We called them Jump Start muffins. I loved them and have been missing them since going grain-free. My fiancé despises raisins so I substitute walnuts. I can’t wait to make these! Thank you
I’m curious about the almond flour. I’ve seen some people make with the raw almonds, skin and all but other say it’s absolutely necessary to blanch the almonds first. As if the fate of free world rests on it. How did you process yours?
Hi Kimberli – we’ve made these with both almond flour and almond meal (Trader Joe’s sells almond meal – meaning the skins included in with the flour) and they’ve turned out well. They have a teeny tiny slightly rougher texture, but still good.
We actually like (for baking purposes) the Honeyville almond flour (on amazon). I find that blanching your own almonds at home takes a good bit of time, which we don’t have a ton of (time), so for us it’s easier to buy the 5lb bag of almond flour in bulk. For general cooking purposes (like doing a fried chicken, or dredging something in almond flour) either will totally do just fine. The Bob’s Red Mill almond flour (blanched) is actually coarser than the Honeyville, which is why for certain baking feats we prefer the Honeyville. Hope that helps!
Thanks for the info. I’ve ordered a 5lb bag of the blanched flour from Honeyville to try out. In the meantime I’m going to make a batch of these this evening but I’m going to have to add pineapple and probably omit the honey. I think I’ll do a batch with carrots and another with zucchini.
Can’t wait for the book!
Oh man are these good! I added a touch of orange extract instead of vanilla because I ran out and they were delicious. Everyone gobbled them down! Thanks for Sharing.
These are delicious I made them today… Thank you!
I’ve tried to make these 3 times this week end. Super dry, the color is not right. I followed the recipe exactly, made sure I did not compact the flour, did not over beat. I really don’t get it. I had some muffins at our crossfit paleo bake sale and they were wonderful, but I can’t seem to pull it off. Ideas?
Ty – for some reason I am having issues responding to you on this (and have lost my response 3 times now). Going to try sending an e-mail!
I LOVE THESE!!!!
These are amazing! They are dense and do not fall apart like other baked goods I have made with coconut flours and almond flours.
I believe the carrot and apple hold it together nicely.
It satisfies your need for cake, not too sweet and it has to have a bunch of fiber as well.
Absolutely wonderful!
Used dates instead of raisins, added some pecans to the 2nd half of the mix and topped it with some kerrygold butter, delicious!
Can you substitute walnut oil for olive or coconut oil? If I use coconut oil, do I need to melt it first? Thanks!
Great, thank you! The wheat version used to be made here a lot. Glad I now have a wheatless version. For kids with texture issues, I’ve been mixing up everything except the first 4 ingredients in the vitamix (I’m sure any blender will do). So I end up with a uniform puree to mix into the dry ingredients instead of shreds/whole raisins (my kids don’t like to be able to identify shreds of stuff in their muffins). Also, this recipe takes substitutions well. I threw a pear in this morning, I’ve used dates or prunes instead of raisins (I didn’t have either one this morning), I never use coconut – as long as the ratio of stuff remains the same it seems to work.
I have made these twice now, to rave reviews. I use one apple plus one pear. The last time, I ran short on carrots so used a shredded zucchini to make up the difference. I can’t believe how sweet and cake-like this comes out. My whole family loves it!
How long will these last? Should they be refrigerated? I just made a batch and they smell amazing!!!
These are lovely. The second time I made them I used 5 small eggs, added bran buds and used cranberries instead of raisins because it’s just what I had in the cupboard. Delicious. I melted my coconut oil in a small saucepan but didn’t add to the eggs, I just added it at the very end just before they went into the oven. I also made half the batch in small muffin pans (bite size) – yum. Thanks for this my hubby is happy.
Just made these — incredibly delicious! First success with gluten-free/paleo recipe for baked goods. Thanks so much for sharing it!
I have a question though, you wrote that these are not something that one should eat everyday. Since all the sugar comes from the fruit (I didn’t use the honey, and actually substituted the eggs with flax-meal), and all of the ingredients are paleo friendly, why would this be the case?
My thought might be that they are very calorie dense…I did the nutrition- over 300 cals each if you make 12. I made these yesterday and they were so delicious. I subbed cranberries for the raisins. I could eat one of these plus 2 eggs for breakfast and be very happy!
Made my first batch of these last weekend using almond meal (Bob’s Red Mill) and the results were fabulous. Froze them to keep my husband and me from snatching them up in one day, and when we took them to work they were thawed and fresh as just made. Bought your cookbook and I haven’t made anything NOT in the book since I got it, and my husband and I are both very impressed with the results.
After reading Dianne froze them, I did an experiment with one muffin, and I’m so happy to find they freeze really well. These are the best paleo muffins I’ve had (and I’ve been paleo a year)!! I use cherries and cranberries.
What is the fat content, fiber, carbs, sugar in these? Loved them, but need to keep on eye on the figure(s)!
Hi Debbie. We actually have no idea. One of the great things about the paleo lifestyle is not counting numbers. If you need those things for your personal use, I suggest fitday.com or nutritiondata.com – both allow you to put in recipes and calculate those numbers.
I love these muffins so much…. every time I make them, I find myself eating spoonfuls of the raw batter. YUM! Also, I was lazy and really hungry, so I just tossed my cored Granny Smith into the food processor without peeling it. Tasted just as good, and you don’t lose the nutrients from the peel!
Made 30 very small muffins, baked at 350 for 20 minutes. I followed recipe exactly except I didn’t peel apple and shredded carrot same texture as apple. They were really good but a bit heavy, I thought. Going to try next time with 4 eggs and half the coconut oil, and maybe some more spice.
Leslie – I’ve found that the mini muffins never taste as moist/light as the regular sized ones. Not sure why? Anyway, that has been my experience.
I made these last night and they are DELICIOUS!!! I got a dozen regular sized muffins, and about 20 mini 2-bite muffins.
I made these last night and, ummm, they taste kinda yucky. I followed the recipe as it was written in the Paleo Comfort Foods book.
I used:
- Trader Joe’s almond meal
- Bob’s Red Mill unsweetened coconut (soaked to soften it)
- Coconut oil instead of olive oil
- Opted to include the honey
- Pink lady apple
The muffins are almost flavorless; taste somewhere along the lines of soggy butter almond dough. I love that they are paleo, and I’ve had awesome success with the other recipes in this book, but not this one. Any ideas what went wrong?
Hi Lew,
Sorry you didn’t have good results – it’s one that most people love! We make this recipe typically with Honeyville almond flour vs. the trader joe’s almond meal. We too have used the coconut oil, but we’ve never soaked the coconut flakes (you did use flakes, not flour – right?). We also typically use Granny smith apples, but I’d think the pink ladies should do fine. Is there anything else you omitted or did differently? I kind of wonder if soaking the coconut flakes would have increased the moisture level in the muffins, thus creating the sogginess you mention. But as for the flavorless, I suppose you could always add more spices to your liking.
These are the best! I can’t believe how little sweetener are in them, I actually think I could do the no honey option. Thanks! Love your book.
FINALLY I have found a go-to, fail-proof paleo muffin recipe! After failing several times with recipes that left mine dry and tasteless, I found your recipe in the cookbook I got for Christmas and these are to die for! My mom begs me to make them almost weekly and I love eating them as a snack or paired with lunch.
The second batch I made, I subbed pear for the apple and added orange zest– they were a hit!
Today’s batch I decided to play a little and I subbed chopped peaches and pineapple for the apple and added a bit of the pineapple juice as well. This combo ended up being deliciously tropical!
Thanks for a great recipe– I’m glad to have finally found a good base that works so I can add my own touches
-Stephanie
I made these last weekend and have been enjoying them all week. You all did a superb job on the recipe conversion. My husband and I agreed, these are not great paleo muffins– No! They’re just great muffins. Plus they’re paleo.
I added some extra spices like ginger, nutmeg, allspice and clove. Love the recipe. Love the book. Thanks for sharing!
Great muffins! I was out of a few ingredients, so I substituted walnut oil for coconut and used a mix of almond flour, walnut flour, and coconut flour for the 2.5 cups of almond flour.
They turned out delectable!