Morning Glory Muffins

I’m a procrastinator. I remember scrambling to finish English papers in high school as the teacher was walking up the down the rows to collect them. This was, of course, because I’d waited until 11:30 pm the night before the paper was due to start working on it. Perhaps if I’d received bad grades I’d have learned my lesson, but I always did well so I never changed my ways. I procrastinated throughout college, during law school and even to this day, if something doesn’t have to be done today I’ll put it off until tomorrow.

We had friends coming into town to stay with us for one night at the start of the long July 4th weekend. About 15 minutes before they were to arrive I realized we didn’t have anything in the house for breakfast and decided I should make muffins. So maybe in addition to being a procrastinator, I’m a bad hostess not thinking ahead about what we’d feed our friends. I frantically flipped through my America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book looking for ideas. I decided on the morning glory muffins because I’d never made them before and was intrigued by the combination of raisins, carrots, pineapple, and coconut.

Our friends wound up hitting a ton of traffic so thankfully I finished the muffins long before they arrived. I tried one when they came out of the oven (you know, just to make sure they were ok) and loved it! The muffins are sweet and have a really warm flavor, thanks to the cinnamon. They were a hit with our friends the next morning too! I think they were pleasantly surprised that all of the flavors worked together. I can definitely see making these again and perhaps trying to make them even healthier by subbing whole wheat flour for some of the all-purpose.

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups sugar

3 large eggs

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 medium carrots, peeled and grated (2 cups)

1 8-oz can crushed pineapple, drained and pressed dry with paper towels

1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut

1/2 cup raisins

1 cup walnuts or pecans, toasted and chopped coarse (I omitted)

Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin (or use paper liners).

Whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together in a large bowl. In a small bowl, whisk the sugar, eggs, melted butter and vanilla together until smooth. Gently fold the sugar mixture into the flour mixture with a rubber spatula until just combined. Fold in the carrots, pineapple, coconut, raisins, and walnuts until just combined.

Using a greased 1/3 cup measure, portion the batter into each muffin cup. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out with just a few crumbs attached, 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking.

Let the muffins cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then flip out onto a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes before serving.