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
These morning glory sourdough muffins make the most of shredded carrots, nuts, and seeds, for a delicious breakfast muffin that uses up some of your sourdough discard.
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 1-½ cups (225 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
Add-Ins
- 2 cups (200 g) carrots, grated (approximately 2 medium carrots)
- 1 cup (100 g) 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 (200 g) sourdough starter
- ¼ cup (63 ml) vegetable or other neutral-flavoured oil, plus 1 tablespoon for greasing the muffin tin
- ¼ cup (50 g) 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 Information:
Yield:
12Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 169Total Fat: 11gSaturated Fat: 3gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 31mgSodium: 372mgCarbohydrates: 16gFiber: 2gSugar: 7gProtein: 4g
This is an approximation of the nutrition offered in this recipe, and is created using a nutrition calculator.
This post was originally published in February 2020. It has been updated as of March 2021 with some simplifications to the recipe.
Laurel Toews says
I just tried this recipe for the first time and LOVE it. And I will make it again! I did make some modifications (grated beet instead of carrot, pear and apple sauce I had already made, about a 1/3 cup of goat milk yogurt, added walnuts and dates, added more seeds than were called for — no extra sugar AND used a blend of spelt, stone milled bread flour and a tiny bit of AP flour) — they are fluffy, delicious. I’m obviously passionate about baking. Now if only I could get my bread to turn out…
Thanks for this great food blog/recipe resource!!!
Lili says
I just made these and they’re delicious. I only added 1 teaspoon of baking powder, rather than a tablespoon, and they rose beautifully. Maybe a typo?
Alexandra Daum says
Hi Lili, this was a typo, it’s been fixed now. Thanks so much for letting us know!
D Gentle says
How about the vanilla? 1 tsp seems plenty there, too? That’s what I used.
Kelly Neil says
Hey D! I wrote this recipe and I always use extra vanilla in my recipes so yes, 1 tablespoon is correct, however, if you liked them with 1 teaspoon that’s great! :)
Kathy says
I made these as cookies. I increased the flour to 2 1/2 cups, grated 2 medium apples, added the 2 cups of grated carrots, and baked at 400 for 11 minutes. For add-ins I toasted a sprouted seed mix , added sweetened orange peal (Paradise) and mini chocolate chips. Amazing! They are just the mid afternoon pick-me-up I needed for hectic days at work.
Eunice Bugaian says
Thank you for sharing your modified version. I will hopefully try it tomorrow.
Tom Lynde says
Is the sourdough starter fed and active?
Alexandra Daum says
Hi Tom, this recipe uses discard.
Sherry says
I was looking for a way to use up some discard starter and came upon this recipe. I didn’t have raisins but had some KAF apple cinnamon jammy bits so I used those. These muffins are delicious!! I got 17 muffins out of one batch, but after seeing that they don’t rise much I now know that overstuffing the muffin tins won’t lead to overflow. Next time I’ll divide up the batter so I get 12 big muffins. Thanks for a great recipe!
Cris says
I love this recipe, and your flexibility for add ins!
I don’t have any starter, how can I adapt the recipe?
Thanks, Cris
Kelly Neil says
Hi Cris! We haven’t tested this but we are thinking you could add ½ cup of flour and ½ cup of milk as a substitute for the starter. Happy baking!
Rosalie says
These muffins are so delicious and moist. I love all the healthy ingredients and they’re naturally sweet, with only 1/4 cup sugar. I use coconut sugar and sprinkled a little on top. My family are loving these delicious breakfast muffin. Thank you!
Mireille says
I am about to make this recipe. I do not have apples, I am wondering what would happen if I skipped it…
I am also side eyeing my candied ginger, could be good in there… or grapefruit zest… mmmm… and dried figs…?
Kelly Neil says
You’ve probably already made your muffins Mireille, however, I’d probably just add some extra carrot plus the other delicious things you mentioned. Grapefruit zest! YUM.