Healthier Vegan Morning Glory Muffins
Ingredients
- 1¾ cups whole wheat flour 230 g
- 1/2 cup brown sugar 100 g
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 cups carrots, grated 200 g
- 1 apple, grated
- 1/2 cup shredded coconut 40 g; unsweetened is fine or use sweetened for a little more sugar
- 40 g nuts, chopped *optional
- 40 g wheat germ *optional
- 3 flax eggs 1/3 cup water + 3 tbsp ground flax
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil 100 g
- 2 tsp vanilla extract 10 g
- 20 mL orange juice or lemon juice
- 1/2 cup dried dates, chopped 60 g
Instructions
- Whisk together the first six ingredients (flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and salt) in a large bowl.
- Stir in the remaining ingredients (carrots, apple, coconut, nuts, sunflower seeds or wheat germ, eggs, oil, vanilla extract, orange juice, dates) and mix until combined.
- Fill muffin pans about 3/4 full and bake at 375 °F for 25–30 minutes (muffins will be fairly brown on top).
- Let stand for 5 min or until cool enough to handle with bare hands. Remove from muffin tin and transfer to a cooling rack. Enjoy hot or cold!
Recipe Notes
This vegan version is adapted from King Arthur Flour’s morning glory muffins recipe.
Omit the nuts and wheat germ if you want. You can also substitute sunflower seeds for the wheat germ. Any chopped dried fruit can be used in place of the dates.
I recommend baking the muffins in silicon molds. You don’t need to spray them with any oil beforehand; if you let them cool for a few minutes after taking them out of the oven, the muffins release beautifully without sticking at all.
For the apples, the King Arthur blog post on these muffins says to finely chop them in a food processor, but not to puree them; however, after Annika put them through our box grater, it had basically become a soft mushy puree. We put them into the recipe anyway, and it didn’t make a difference to the final product at all. So, process your apples however you like—dice into chunks, whizz them into a puree, whatever—the texture won’t have a big impact.
However, you do want your carrots to be grated, not pureed. They add some interesting textures to the bake that you’d miss if you blended them smooth.
Eat a muffin… or two
With only 170 calories for each muffin, you can chomp on a couple of these for breakfast and feel totally guilt-free. The fruits and veggies in this recipe not only make each muffin super moist, reducing the amount of oil needed, they also contribute their natural sweetness to the batter. We found that halving the sugar from the original King Arthur recipe still results in a totally delectable treat!
Even better, these muffins are super hardy, and are great for packing in your lunch or eating on the go.
Since one batch makes 20 muffins, and they freeze well, I’ve thrown about half of them into an airtight lunchbox in the freezer to save for a rainy day. To reheat, pop them into the oven at 350 °F for around 10 minutes, or until warmed through.
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