Morning Glory Muffins

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears.

Ok sometimes when I blog I think I'm all of a sudden a lot funnier than I really am.  Hence the above stupidity.  Here's where I was going with that thought: "friends, romans, countrymen, lend me your ears" to say: WE ARE SORRY FOR NOT BLOGGING FOR OVER TWO WEEKS!  Kate has always been fairly busy, but as of recent, homegirl is EXTREMELY busy, and I am nearing the end of my semester, so I maintain a busy schedule, as well.  BUT- the summertime is upon us- and more blogging should be coming from this computer after the semester is over!  Not that ya'll are waiting on pins and needles (whoever 'ya'll' may be), but for the followers we DO have, we wanted to say we are sorry!

So if you've been with us for a while you know that I have a thing for healthy muffins.  In the archives are a delicious recipe for some fairly healthy banana nut muffins from Cooking Light, but now I'd like to share with you a recipe I tried and it might just be the.best. healthy muffin recipe I have yet to taste (mind you this has been a three year long quest and I've made some DOOZIES).  Even my sweet husband- who has not particularly enjoyed this process of finding great, healthy muffins, said that this recipe was the best he'd had, and not like, "as far as healthy muffins go, it's good" but like, ACTUALLY ENJOYED THE MUFFIN!  So, thanks to Pinterest leading me to this blog, here is a fab recipe.  I'll share with you the changes I made:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup raisins
 (I re-hydrate them by soaking them in VERY hot water for about 5 minutes)
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup old fashioned oats
3/4 cup brown sugar (I used part honey and part REAL sugar- like, unrefined, organic sugar.  Brown sugar is NOT better for you than white sugar- it's just white sugar with molasses added)

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups carrots, peeled and grated

1 large apple, peeled, cored, and grated (I left this out because I didn't have an apple)

1/2 cup shredded coconut, sweetened or unsweetened
 (I omitted this, too)
1/2 cup chopped pecans

1/3 cup wheat germ
3 large eggs

2/3 cup unsweetened apple sauce
 (I'm fairly certain you could use yogurt instead)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 cup orange juice
demerara sugar, for topping (that's basically 'sugar in the raw')

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375°F.  Grease a 12-cup muffin tin. 

In a small bowl, cover the raisins with hot water, and set them aside to soak while you assemble the rest of the recipe.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the carrots, apple, coconut, nuts, and wheat germ, if using. In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, applesauce, vanilla, and orange juice. Add to the flour mixture, and stir until evenly moistened. Drain the raisins and stir them in. Divide the batter among the wells of the prepared pan, filling almost to top. Sprinkle with demerara sugar.



Bake for 23 to 25 minutes, until 'domed' and a toothpick poked in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven, let cool for 5 minutes in their pan on a rack, then turn out of pans to finish cooling.


*compliments of www.honeyandjam.com