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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Had never made morning glories before (though they are my favorite muffin), and this recipe gave me just what I was hoping for! Thank you.
Amazing! Followed recipe as directed except couldn’t find the bag of Bob’s wheat germ I had just bought, so subbed Bob’s ground flaxseed same amount. I ended up with 12 regular sized muffins and a small batch of mini muffins (I’ve never been good at measuring!). Made them for kids’ school breakfast but half of them were gone yesterday! They not only had them for breakfast but took one for lunch too. Guess I better make another batch 🙂 I may have had one for lunch too…
Great recipe! Super moist with the apple too! Thank you!
I have a coworker who eats only natural, organic vegetarian food, so she hardly ever eats what my colleagues bring in. However, these muffins received her stamp of approval!
I like that these muffins aren’t too sweet. The only difficult part of this recipe for me was grating the carrots and apple…I have a food processor on my birthday list so that will make this super easy!
Thanks for another great recipe Jenn!
I just made these today. They came out very good! I didnt use wheat germ I just used a whole cup of walnuts and processed some smaller. I also added a little nutmeg.
Thank you for this recipe. My family really enjoyed these. I only made minor modifications to the recipe, reducing the sugar and oil slightly. delicious!
I made these yesterday and they were delicious! But, while eating one this morning I noticed that there was green in the muffins. It looked like the carrots molded. Did anyone else have this problem? I did store them covered at room temp, but it had been only one day!
Hi Beth, Another reviewer had the same issue. My guess is that the baking soda was not well incorporated. Here’s a link to an article that explains: http://www.thekitchn.com/food-science-when-good-carrots-52210
I made this yesterday exactly like the recipe. Once they cooled I put in fridge, later that evening I grabbed one to eat and notice green stuff on it! Like mold, for a minute I thought it looked like zucchini muffin. It tasted fine but I want to know why the carrots turned green!
Moliver, Here is an article that explains green carrots. My guess is that the baking soda was not mixed in well…
http://www.thekitchn.com/food-science-when-good-carrots-52210
These muffins are great. The absolutely delicious smell when they are baking made me say, “Hurry up, hurry up get finish.”
Thanks for the delicious recipe!
I made a few changes based on the ingredients I had in my pantry.
I used AP Flour instead of Whole Wheat only because I”m all out of WW Flour
I used chopped pecans instead of walnuts because that’s what I had 🙂
I ground some oatmeal in the food processor instead of wheat germ. (apparently I could have replaced with equal volume of crushed nuts, flax seed, all bran, extra flour, etc)
I used freshly squeezed orange juice because I only had whole oranges
I used unsweetened coconut
I used macintosh apple.
I used canola oil instead of vegetable (might try olive oil or a blend next time)
To portion I used a #12 Green handle (3 oz) scoop and it portioned 12 muffins.
I sprayed the pan with nonstick spray
24 minutes cooked these perfectly with a clean tooth pick and beautiful colour.
These had a good flavor, but we’re dry and crumbly. Cannot recommend.
Hi Keith, I’m so sorry your muffins turned out dry and crumbly. I’ve made these muffins many times and they are moist as can be. I’m wondering if you cut back on the sugar or made any substitutions?