These morning glory sourdough muffins make the most of shredded carrots, apple, and seeds, for a delicious breakfast muffin that uses up some of your sourdough discard.
This post first appeared May 2, 2020 and was last updated March 26, 2021.
We love adding discard to various bakes in our kitchens, and these morning glory sourdough muffins are no exception! The discard adds just a touch of tang that’s wonderfully balanced by the sweet carrot, apple, and dried fruit.
Here’s a comprehensive list of all of our sourdough discard recipes if you find you always have too much discard on hand. If you like these muffins, you’ll probably love our sourdough blueberry muffins, too!
Just sweet enough and with a great texture, these are sure to become a breakfast and midday snack favourite. Change up the add-ins based on what you like – it’s flexible!
Use the JUMP TO RECIPE button at the top, or scroll to the bottom of the post to see the printable recipe card with full ingredient measurements and complete instructions.
Ingredients
Method
Preheat the oven to 425ºF (220ºC). Lightly grease a standard 12-cup muffin tin with oil then line the cups with paper muffin wrappers. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Add the grated carrots and apple, coconut, raisins, and seeds to the flour mixture. Use a rubber spatula or wooden spoon to stir everything together, breaking up any larger clumps of grated carrot or apple as needed.
In a second bowl, whisk together the sourdough starter, oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla until smooth.
Make a well in the carrot-flour mixture and pour in the wet ingredients. Again, using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, fold everything together until just combined with a few streaks of flour remaining.
Divide the muffin batter evenly between the cups in the prepared muffin tin. Top the muffins with a little coarse sugar if you’d like.
Place the tin in the preheated oven and bake the muffins for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375ºF (190ºC) and continue to bake the muffins for 10 minutes more.
Remove the muffins from the oven, placing the tin on a wire rack to cool for 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer the muffins from the tin to the wire rack and let them cool completely before storing them an airtight container or zip-top plastic bag.
Tips and Notes
This recipe uses discard from sourdough starter. If you use the levain method, don’t worry! You can use active starter, too, but be sure to weigh everything to be accurate.
Grate carrots and apples coarse with a standard box grater. To speed things up, you can use the grating attachment on a food processor.
Store the muffins in an airtight container on the counter or the fridge for 5-7 days, or freeze them for up to 3 months. Thaw on the counter for an hour or so, or gently defrost in the microwave before you eat.
This may seem like a lot of batter after mixing, but will make 12 muffins!
The muffins can be made in a standing mixer if you prefer, with the paddle attachment.
Adding the carrots, apple, and other add-ins to the flour and stirring together before adding the wet ingredients prevents over-mixing, which can lead to a less tender muffin. Feel free to stir dry into wet and then add carrots, etc. if you prefer.
Substitutions
We use golden raisins which have a nice plump sweetness, but any raisins will work! Try dried cranberries or another dried berry for a bit of a twist.
We made these muffins nut-free for school. Use any combination of seeds or nuts you like – we love hazelnuts, pecans, and walnuts.
If you like a sweeter muffin, double the sugar. You can also use raw, brown, or even coconut sugar here.
Spelt flour is a good substitution for the wheat flour. We haven’t tried making these gluten-free. Sub whole wheat for a more wholesome muffin.
More Great Muffin Recipes
Mixed Berry Muffins With Toasted Coconut (gluten-free)
Vegan Bran Muffins
Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
Almond Flour Banana Muffins
Mini Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins (dairy-free)
If you make this recipe, let us know by tagging @baked_theblog + #bakedtheblog on Instagram! We love to feel like we’re in the kitchen with you.
Recipe
Sourdough Morning Glory Muffins
Description
Equipment
- Measuring cups and spoons or a digital kitchen scale
- 12-cup muffin tin
- muffin cups
- Mixing bowl
- Whisk
- Rubber spatula or wooden spoon
- Wire rack
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 1-½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
Add-Ins
- 2 cups carrots, grated, approximately 2 medium carrots
- 1 cup grated apple, approximately 1 medium-small apple
- ½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- ½ cup raisins
- ½ cup seeds and/or nuts, we used a mix of sunflower, pumpkin, and flax seeds
Wet Ingredients
- 1 cup sourdough starter
- ¼ cup vegetable, or other neutral-flavoured oil, plus 1 tablespoon for greasing the muffin tin
- ¼ cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- Extra coarse sugar for topping, optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425ºF (220ºC).
- Lightly grease a standard 12-cup muffin tin with oil then line the cups with paper muffin wrappers. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Add the grated carrots and apple, coconut, raisins, and seeds to the flour mixture. Use a rubber spatula or wooden spoon to stir everything together, breaking up any larger clumps of grated carrot or apple as needed.
- In a second bowl, whisk together the sourdough starter, oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla until smooth.
- Make a well in the carrot-flour mixture and pour in the wet ingredients. Again, using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, fold everything together until just combined with a few streaks of flour remaining.
- Divide the muffin batter evenly between the cups in the prepared muffin tin. Top the muffins with a little coarse sugar if you’d like.
- Place the tin in the preheated oven and bake the muffins for 10 minutes.
- Reduce the heat to 375ºF (190ºC) and continue to bake the muffins for 10 minutes more.
- Remove the muffins from the oven, placing the tin on a wire rack to cool for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Transfer the muffins from the tin to the wire rack and let them cool completely before storing them an airtight container or zip-top plastic bag.
Nutrition
This post was originally published in February 2020. It has been updated as of March 2021 with some simplifications to the recipe.
Tamara says
I love this recipe and have been making a 1/2 batch weekly for the last few months. They are perfect as a grab-and-go breakfast that is not too sweet. Mixing the apple and carrot in with the dry ingredients is brilliant!
When I don’t have enough discard, I mix together equal amounts of chickpea flour and water as a substitute. Wholewheat works well for the rest of the flour in the recipe. I also substitute ground cardamom for 1/3 of the cinnamon and add some gratings of nutmeg. For the seeds I use a mixture of pumpkin, sunflower, sesame and hemp. On top I sprinkle a small amount of sparkling sugar, for extra crunch, and press in a pecan half.
Lina Bedard says
These muffins were very easy to make and tasted delicious. I will definitely be making them again.
Judy S. says
When I originally found this recipe, there were some notes if some of the batter was going to be stored in the fridge overnight. Now that I did that, I can’t find the notes that went with that option. Please let me know what the notes were. Thank you. I love this recipe. It’s really yummy & versatile!! Thank you.
Alexandra Daum says
Hi Judy, I think you might be referring to a reader comment asking if it would be okay to leave the batter in the refrigerator overnight. We haven’t tested it, but it should be fine. Glad you like the recipe!
Jann says
Best discard recipe ever! I used White Whole Wheat Flour and 230g discard. Also chopped pecans instead of seeds. Thank you for a great recipe!