Morning Glory Muffins
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Morning glory muffins are wholesome, delicious, and true to their name—a glorious way to start the day!
Morning glory muffins are brimming with wholesome goodness. Made with whole wheat flour, carrots, apples, raisins, walnuts, orange juice, coconut, and wheat germ, they were created decades ago by Chef Pam McKinstry for her Morning Glory Café on Nantucket Island. These muffins are a throwback to the 1970s “back-to-the-land” era, when wholesome hippie foods were all the rage. True to their name, they’re a glorious way to kick-start your day—a feel-good, homemade treat.
If you love the cozy flavors of carrots, raisins, and warm spices, you might also enjoy my classic carrot cake—it shares many of the same ingredients but in a more decadent dessert form. For more muffin inspiration, try my blueberry muffins or banana muffins—both are simple favorites that bake up beautifully.
“I’ve been making this recipe for a few years now and it never disappoints! The muffins are moist and delicious. I usually double the recipe and keep some in freezer so we always have them on hand!”
What You’ll Need To Make Morning Glory Muffins
- Raisins, carrots, apple, walnuts & coconut: This mix gives the muffins their signature balance of sweetness, moisture, and a subtle tropical note, with just the right amount of crunch from the nuts.
- White Whole Wheat Flour, brown sugar, wheat germ, and baking soda: This combination forms the dry base. The flour provides structure (I like King Arthur), the sugar adds depth with its hint of molasses, the wheat germ lends a subtle nuttiness and extra nutrition, and baking soda leavens the muffins.
- Eggs, oil, orange juice & vanilla extract: These wet ingredients bind the batter, add sweetness, and keep the muffins tender. The orange juice adds brightness, and the vanilla rounds out the flavor.
- Cinnamon & ginger: These spices add cozy warmth and just enough zing to balance the fruit and nuts.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1. Soak the raisins. Place them in hot water to soften and plump.
Pro Tip: If you’d like to experiment, try soaking the raisins in hot tea (like Earl Grey or chamomile) instead of plain water for a subtle flavor twist.
Step 2. Prep the produce. Grate the carrots and apple (a food processor makes quick work of this, but a box grater works just as well). If making your own orange juice, juice the orange now.
Pro Tip: If you’re using a box grater, grate the carrots first—it’ll keep the apple from sitting too long and getting watery.
Step 3. Mix the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and salt. Use your fingers to break up any brown sugar lumps.
Pro Tip: Like regular whole wheat, white whole wheat flour is 100% whole grain—the difference comes from the lighter-colored wheat it’s milled from. It has the same nutrition but a milder flavor and color. If you can’t find it, use regular whole wheat flour, or go half whole wheat and half all-purpose for lighter muffins.
Step 4. Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, orange juice, and vanilla extract.
Step 5. Combine everything. Add the wet mixture to the flour mixture, then stir in the apple, carrots, wheat germ, walnuts, coconut, and drained raisins. Mix until evenly moistened; the batter will be very thick.
Step 6. Bake. Divide the batter into the wells of a greased 12-cup muffin pan. The wells will be very full. Bake in a 375°F oven for about 25 minutes, until nicely domed.
Pro Tip: If you have an ice cream scoop, that works well to fill the muffin pan.
Step 7. Cool and serve. Let muffins cool in the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool completely. The muffins keep nicely for several days; freeze for longer storage.
Morning Glory Muffins Mix-and-Match Swaps
These muffins are super flexible—here are a few easy substitutions to make them your own. Just be mindful of maintaining the overall moisture and texture of the batter when making substitutions:
- Wheat germ: Swap with wheat bran, ground flaxseed, or even finely ground oats.
- Raisins: Use dried cranberries, chopped dried apricots, or just leave them out.
- Coconut: Skip it, or replace with extra shredded carrots or apples for moisture.
- Walnuts: Try chopped pecans, almonds, or hazelnuts—or omit altogether.
My starting point for this recipe was the Morning Glory Muffins on the King Arthur Flour. I found their version to be a bit bland, so I increased the spices, raisins, walnuts, and sugar.
More Healthy Breakfast Recipes to Try
Morning Glory Muffins
Ingredients
- ⅔ cup raisins
- 2 cups King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour, or Whole Wheat Flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled-off
- 1 cup + 2 tablespoons (packed) light brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3 large eggs
- ⅔ cup vegetable oil
- ¼ cup orange juice (if making your own, you'll need one orange)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups peeled and shredded carrots, from 4 to 5 large carrots
- 1 large tart apple, such as Granny Smith, peeled, cored and shredded
- ½ cup shredded coconut, sweetened or unsweetened
- ⅔ cup chopped walnuts
- ⅓ cup wheat germ
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Grease a 12-cup muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.
- In a small bowl, cover the raisins with hot water. Set them aside to soak.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and salt.
- Drain the raisins, squeezing out any excess water with your hands.
- In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, orange juice, and vanilla extract. Add to the flour mixture, along with the drained raisins, carrots, apple, coconut, walnuts, and wheat germ. Mix until the batter is evenly moistened and combined.
- Divide the batter among the wells of the prepared pan. They will be very full.
- Bake the muffins for about 25 minutes, until they're nicely domed and a cake tester inserted in the center of one of the inner muffins comes out clean.
- Remove the muffins from the oven and let cool in the pan on a rack for about 5 minutes. Turn the muffins out onto the rack to cool completely. Cover and store at room temperature for several days.
Notes
Nutrition Information
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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These are amazing! Hearty and delicious without being overly sweet. They’re best warm from the oven with a nice smear of Kerrygold.
Hi Jenn,
Love love love your recipes! I feel like our families have the same taste buds. I want to try this recipe out. 1. My husband can eat nuts lately. I wanted to make half the batch without nuts, but should I substitute anything in the meantime, or is a plain omission okay? 2. We are gluten free, and typically I just substitute 1:1 GF flour for the all-purpose and it works out fine (I’ll never know how much better it could’ve been!). From other comments, it looks like that might work here for the whole wheat flour and I should use ground flax seed for the wheat germ?
BTW, I made your lemon bars last night—yum! And I love your arugula salad recipe— I eat it with breakfast, lunch, and dinner every time I have a batch!
Best,
Patricia
Hi Patricia, so glad you like the recipes! Yes, it’s fine to omit the nuts without any other modifications. Gluten-free flour, should work just fine, and ground flaxseed would make a good substitute for the wheat germ. Hope that helps and that you enjoy!
QUESTION
Hi Jenn:
First off – so grateful to have discovered your website & will be purchasing your cookbook!
Ok …question
I’m having trouble locating wheat germ ( and I know what it is ). Can I leave it out, or would the muffins turn out dry?
Thank you again for sharing your gift.
Lisa
Glad you came upon the blog and thanks in advance for purchasing the cookbook! 🙂
You can easily replace the wheat germ with wheat bran, ground flaxseed, or ground oats. Hope you enjoy!
Thank you !
I have a lot of flaxseed, and like the suggestion.
Will be making these this morning.
Thank you!
Lisa
I love these muffins so much! The first time I made them with the full amount of sugar and sweetened coconut and the second time I didn’t pack the sugar and I used unsweetened coconut. Both were delicious. My husband and 1 year old like them too. I’m thinking about trying different variations like dried cherries or blueberries next time.
I made this recipe , no substutions. It was delicious. Compliments all around…
For some reason my muffins didn’t raise very much. Instead they just spread quite a bit over the muffin pan. I used a standard muffin pan. Tasted very good but wondering what I did wrong. I followed the recipe exactly but couldn’t find white wheat flour and instead used whole wheat. Could that have affected the outcome? Can you use regular King Arthur flour instead of wheat? Will try again but will make more muffins so they don’t overflow.
Hi Deb, sorry you had a problem with these! It’s fine that you used regular whole wheat flour and, yes, King Arthur all-purpose flour would work here as well. Is there any chance you made a measuring error? Or is your baking soda very old?
I love this recipe! Whenever I make them for friends, they always ask for the recipe. Though the original recipe is excellent, I also have substituted one cup of Monkfruit, plus two teaspoons of molasses for the sugar to reduce the calories and make it healthier and they still tasted great.
Instead of muffins, can I bake this as a loaf? If so, for how long?
Sure, I’d lower the temperature to 350 degrees. It may take a little over an hour in the oven – likely 65 to 75 minutes, but keep a close eye on it!
I have everything but the wheatgerm. Can I leave it out?
Hi Jeanne, You can omit the wheat germ, but you’ll need to keep the ratio of wet to dry ingredients the same, so you could replace it with wheat bran, ground flaxseed, or ground oats. Hope you enjoy!
Jenn, can I incorporate ripe bananas into this recipe? I have a couple I need to use up. Thanks!!
Hi Carolyn, These muffins are quite moist as is, so I wouldn’t recommend adding more moisture to them with the banana. One reader commented that used one ripe banana in place of the grated apples, so you could give that a try (please keep in mind I haven’t tried it myself). I’d love to hear how they turn out if you try it! 🙂