morning glory

I've been a baking machine this week. I love to bake. Even better, I love to bake for a good cause. A brilliant friend of mine (Suzanne) came up with this great idea. She was struggling with what she could do in light of the famine in Africa. Her heart was breaking for the moms and children who had no hope, and only moments or days to live. Suzanne has a background in the catering industry, and thought she would put some of those skills to use to make a difference. She got in touch with The Meeting House and her idea was realized. Suzanne bakes muffins once per month, and sells them at the cafe on Sunday mornings. All proceeds go to MCC who steward the funds in Africa. OF COURSE I HAD TO GET ON BOARD!!!  

I make a breakfast-type muffin for this project, a muffin that made my mom swoon (and maybe still does), but one that I used to turn my nose up at (raisins in baked goods = gross!!)...morning glory muffins. Homemade, fresh-baked muffins are one of my favourite things in the whole wide world and these muffins have so many things I love - coconut, pineapple, apple, carrot, and nuts (except I made mine nut-free for this venture). I love them so much, I thought I would share the recipe.

First, gather the ingredients you are going to need:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 Tbsp cinnamon
2 tsps baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup coconut
3/4 cup GOLDEN raisins
1 large grated apple
2 cups grated carrots
1 cup crushed pineapple
3 eggs
1 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla extract.

Don't get stressed out by the grated apple and grated carrots. I grated a bunch of carrots and portioned them into containers or Ziplocs and had my next 2 batches covered. I did use my food processor and realize not everyone has one. If you have one, grate away, and grate your apples at the same time. You only need 1 for 1 batch.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Because I was baking all the muffins at the same time in 2 muffin tins, I used the convection bake option on my oven, and baked them at 325. 

Stir the sugar, flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Add the coconut, raisins, apple, pineapple, carrots, and nuts, and stir to combine. 

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs with the oil and vanilla.

Pour into the bowl with the dry ingredients and blend well.

Spoon the batter into muffin tins lined with muffin cups, filling each to the brim. 

Note to those who bake lots of muffins, like I do. I love my muffin scoop. You can see it in the photo below. Until recently, I would use a soup spoon, and fill each muffin cup, slopping muffin batter EVERYWHERE. Now I fill my scoop and with a push of my thumb on the handle of the scoop, all the scoop's contents empty into the correct place. No mess. So easy!!

Bake for 35 mins if you are using non-convection, or for 28 mins if you are using convection and preheated your oven. Insert a toothpick into the middle and make sure it comes out clean. Your muffins are then done.

Cool muffins in the pan for 10 mins, then put them on a rack to finish cooling. The recipe says it makes 16 muffins. I get around 19 out of the recipe. These muffins taste better a day after baking. You can store them at room temperature for up to 3 days (covered), or freeze them for up to 2 months.

The hardest part of this process has been to show self-control and not eat one fresh muffin each batch I make. Confession: I did have to eat one. Have to you ask? Yes, have to. On one batch, I put in 2 tsps of salt instead of 1/2 tsp salt and realized it too late. I had forgotten to put in the 2 tsps baking soda. So I added the baking soda to the wet batter and mixed it well, hoping that the baking soda would incorporate. So you can see, sampling was a necessity. And the extra-salty muffins were just fine. You couldn't tell (at least in the muffin I ate).

If you want to try one of these muffins, come on out to the Oakville site of The Meeting House this Sunday, any service. Suggested donation is $2 and Suzanne is making 3 other types of incredible muffins.

Nothing like muffins for MCC,
Tam