Morning Glory Muffins
Loaded with fruits and nuts, these Morning Glory Muffins are a delicious breakfast treat!
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We’re all about safety here in our house. We’ve got smoke detectors in all of the appropriate places, and we’ve got a carbon monoxide detector on each floor. Ok, maybe I have to disable the smoke detector whenever I cook bacon, but I blame the architect of our house for that. The air intake for our heating and cooling system is in the kitchen. Stop and think about that for a moment. Whenever I cook anything, that air intake sucks all the smells straight in and sends ’em all over the house. I’m not complaining about our house smelling like bacon…but apparently our smoke detector thinks that cooked bacon resembles smoke from a fire. Go figure.
So the other night, we were fast asleep. I’m talking like that deep sleep where you’re disoriented when you wake up. I’m talking like that 1:45am deep sleep. That’s when I heard it. *beep beep* Two ear-splitting chirps echoed throughout the upstairs of our house. I opened my eyes and tried to figure out if I’d heard those beeps in real life or in a dream. My wife was dead asleep along with our 2 dogs. It must have been a dream. *beep beep* Nope, it was real life. And the dogs heard it this time, too.
I should note that our dogs are terrified of the smoke alarm. Whenever it beeps, they are immediately reduced to shaking balls of fur. They climb up my legs or wedge themselves under the bed…where they promptly get stuck, I might add. And this goes on for no less than an hour after the chirping stops, too. So my first thought when I heard those chirps was the dogs. And yes, the dogs did indeed hear that second set of chirps.
*beep beep* I half-ran/half-stumbled out into the hallway, grabbed a chair and ripped the smoke detector battery out. I’m pretty sure I threw it on the floor. By then, my wife was awake, and the dogs were losing their minds. But I had solved the chirping. *beep beep* Wrong. It was the darned carbon monoxide detector…which for the record was right next to my ear. Sure enough, it had an “Err” message code on the screen. I ripped it out of the wall. *beep beep* Seriously?? I ripped the batteries out of it and threw it on the floor. Problem solved.
Since we are all about safety (and since we were awake now), I headed off to the basement storage room to get some new batteries. My wife took the dogs outside, although that didn’t do much good. They were in full-on panic mode. I put the new batteries in the carbon monoxide detector and plugged it back in the wall. *beep beep* What the beep? The batteries came back out immediately. So here’s a fun fact of the day. Those carbon monoxide detectors are programmed to stop working after 7 years. My wife figured this out after searching the interwebs at 2:30am for the solution to the “Err” and the chirps. I thought back to when we bought that detector. Sure enough, 7 years and 2 weeks.
So I’m ok with carbon monoxide detectors quitting after 7 years. There’s a lot of new technology that comes out in 7 years. I mean, think back to what cell phone you were using 7 years ago. But can’t they come up with a way to alert you without sending out ear-splitting (and dog-wrecking) chirps?
Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep that night. But lucky for me, I had some of these delicious Morning Glory Muffins left over from the previous day’s baking. I might have been tired, but at least I had something tasty for breakfast. It’s all about priorities, right?
Morning Glory Muffins are loaded with all sorts of fruits and nuts…and they are really quite yummy. There’s tons of variations on this, so feel free to mix it up. I personally went with walnuts, raisins, pineapple, apple and coconut. Don’t like raisins? Leave ’em out. Better yet, throw some dried cranberries in instead. Not a walnut fan? Use pecans. I love pecans in muffins. I just happened to use walnuts this time because my hand landed on them first.
What’s your favorite variety of muffin? What about carbon monoxide detectors…is yours close to 7 years old?
Morning Glory Muffins
Ingredients
- ½ cup raisins
- ½ cup walnuts chopped
- 1¾ cups all purpose flour
- ¾ cup + 2 Tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
- 1 Granny Smith apple peeled and grated
- ½ cup crushed pineapple drained
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 2 Tbsp orange juice
- 2 Tbsp oats
Instructions
- Line a muffin tin with paper liners; set aside.
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Put raisins into a bowl with 1 cup of very hot water; set aside.
- Spread chopped walnuts on a baking sheet and bake for 4-5 minutes. (Tip: Watch walnuts carefully as they can burn quickly!) Remove walnuts from oven and set aside.
- Increase oven temperature to 375°F.
- In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Add the coconut flakes, grated apple, pineapple and toasted walnuts. Drain raisins and add to the bowl. Stir until well combined.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, vanilla and orange juice.
- Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just combined.
- Fill each paper liner ¾ full with batter; sprinkle tops with oats.
- Bake at 375°F for 27-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out mostly clean.
That has to be one of the worst ways to be waken up during the night. That, and when someone breaks in your house.
I’m glad you had a glorious morning though! 😉
#WolfpackGlory
Oh geez…I think someone breaking into the house is way worse! Unless it’s a wolf. Well, even wolves aren’t allowed to break into houses. But they are allowed to sit on the back porch and howl all night long. Haha! 🙂
It IS ALL about priorities indeed! Especially when priorities=food! 🙂
Mrs. Spiced searched the interwebs at that unGodly hour??? Now that’s dedication to safety indeed! I had no idea that CO detectors expired in 7 years – my realtor gave me a combo fire/CO monitor when we moved in about 6 years ago – I better change those batteries pronto!
As for Morning Glory muffins – I’ve never made them – never had them – tried to talk Becca into sending me some – but apparently her mailman is related to your mail lady! These remind me of a Hummingbird cake a friend baked me once – it was so yum!
So Mrs. Spiced was searching the interwebs because she was afraid we might actually have a legit carbon monoxide leak in the house. Turns out, nope (fortunately)…just an annoying 7 year expiration that decided to expire in the dead of night. And it’s not the batteries…it’s the whole darn thing! It just quits working and beeps at you incessantly until you pull the batteries out. Then you gotta hit the home improvement store to buy a new one.
Morning Glory Muffins are amazing…and really pretty easy to make! I think I will send some down to you via a carrier pigeon. (You know the mail lady and her reliability…)
Hi David! To me these are a perfect start for the day! My dogs are okay with noise, but not my cat Henry. Whenever the dogs bark or I run the vacuum Henry dives under the couch and he stays there long after the commotion has stopped!
Hah! Well, consider yourself lucky that at least the dogs don’t mind the commotion. Max (our larger one) chases the vaccuum cleaner while Ethel (the little one) shivers in the corner. They both lose their minds when it comes to smoke alarms, though. Not fun!!
Sorry to hear about the carbon monoxide detectors and your dogs. . not a fun evening at all! My husband works in insurance . . on the corporate side, but he takes care of all of that. . our house is up to code and all that good stuff .. I hope you ate 3 of these muffins that next morning!!! these look fabulous!!!
I totally ate 3 of these muffins, Alice! I needed that extra one to help me stay awake after that night. I had no idea that carbon monoxide detectors are set to quit working after 7 years. We bought new ones, and sure enough they had (in small print) a note on the bottom about the 7-year thing. Oh well, at least I had muffins!
Waking up disoriented in the middle of the night is no fun. Having to deal with technology is even worse. Although, I was just scared out of my bed at 4 am two nights ago by an earthquake. Yikes. GREG
Ouch. An earthquake! I heard about that on the news the next morning, Greg. I’m thinking that would have been a bit scarier than the carbon monoxide experience…but equally as jarring. At least an earthquake isn’t technology, right? 🙂
Dude I had a similar experience with my damn carbon monoxide alarm too. It drove me insane! I keep thinking about that Friends episode with Phoebe haha. I wish I had these muffins that following morning… and right now.
Hahaha…that is totally one of my all-time favorite Friends episodes, Bianca! “Phoebe Buffay?….Fire alarm?” I don’t know how I missed the connection there. Classic! But yes, these muffins sorta made the fact that I got zero sleep better. I mean, I did still get zero sleep…but at least I had tasty muffins! 🙂
Definitely a muffin I could’ve eaten this morning! They look so wholesome and oh-so delicious with all those flavors!! 🙂
Oh man, these muffins are one of my favorites, Christina! They are baked with all sorts of awesomeness! 🙂
I’ve been through that, too! And of course it was when I was alone in the house with the dogs. “Chirp” chirp” so annoying and then to locate the culprit (nope, not the smoke detector!) and take the batteries out was heaven. I felt so accomplished! I just couldn’t remember where the carbon monoxide detector was at first. Then I was fully awake again and just read blogs for a while. These would have been great to snack on toasted with butter, and I am digging the shredded apple part. Nice touch!
I’m pretty sure I did eat some of these muffins toasted with butter. They were amazing! Just the snack I needed after dealing with the carbon monoxide fiasco. I think they should make it more obvious that those things just quit working after 7 years! And not just quit working…but beep incessantly after 7 years. Oh well, now I know. But at least I had some tasty muffins in the kitchen waiting on me!
Carbon monoxide detectors? Geebuz I didn’t even know they had those. Live and learn- Although maybe at a more suitable hour! Smoke alarms though- The Australian government has tried to advocate a rule that Daylight saving each year, to replace the batteries regardless of duration. the thing is, ours still went off! Oh and we didn’t have muffins to compensate either! 😉
Yeah, they do the same thing here with changing the batteries whenever you change your clock. It’s a smart move. But no one told me that those stupid carbon monoxide detectors quit working after 7 years! They’re hard-coded to just quit. Uh, I mean chirp incessantly with an ear-splitting beep. At least the muffins were sortof compensation for getting no sleep!
Good grief! What a night! I am so glad to be informed that carbon monoxide detectors need replaced after 7 years (that explains a lot). 7 years ago, I can’t even remember what kind of phone I had, but I’m fairly certain I still had a land line and some kind of out of date cell phone. Thank goodness you had a premonition and whipped up some muffins ahead of time! They look fantastic! BTW – my dogs are the same way. Any kind of loud noise sends them under beds shaking and sucking their non-existent thumbs. 4 big dogs (3 boxers and a pit) shaking like babies. What kind of dogs do you have?
Haha…I wish I could say that my skills were so good that I just knew the carbon monoxide detector would go out and I would need tasty muffins. In fact, if my skills were that good, I would have just unplugged the stupid thing before I went to bed! Your poor pups..and they are big guys, too! We have 2: a cockapoo (~30 pounds) and a chihuahua mix rescue mutt (~10 pounds). They are small enough to fit under the bed, but then they can’t get out. One day I came home to find out that the smoke alarm battery had died while I was gone. It literally took me hours to calm them back down. Poor guys!!
Oh, that beeping! It is so annoying and I can only imagine how freaked out your dogs were when it wouldn’t stop. The good news of course was these muffins you had the next day. I would love these with everything you mentioned, but I would definitely switch out the raisins and do cranberries. And my favorite muffin is a tie between cranberry orange or blueberry orange. 🙂
Ooo…Blueberry Orange Muffins sound incredible, Tamara! Of course, I love pretty much any and all muffins. There’s something so awesome about breakfast food, right? 🙂 But there is something so NOT awesome about chirping alarms. I mean, they do keep us safe, and I appreciate that…but can’t they alert us in some other way when they decide to quit working??
Oh my – what a way to be woken up in the night. These muffins sound delicious though, and we actually had something similar on Christmas morning. They were a big hit with everyone.
Yeah, it was NOT a pleasant way to wake up and spend the next several hours. But now I know that carbon monoxide detectors are programmed to quit working after 7 years. I think I’ll need to make another batch of yummy muffins in anticipation of that day! 🙂
Urgh I hate when something silly like this disturbs my sleep! Glad you had these amazing muffins to eat for breakfast to make up for it! They sound incredible!
Tell me about it, Manali! I’m all about safety and all…but 1:30am? Really? They should program those things to stop working at 12pm or something. Oh well…it was a great excuse for muffins! 🙂
It’s okay that they stop working after 7 years (indeed, you’re lucky – 7 years and two weeks haha), but that’s so cruel that they decided to do that at night. You shouldn’t wasted your time in this case, David but made/baked something good instead of sleep. With bacon probably?:) Needles to say these muffins are so good (you know my love for oats, don’t you?) I guess with these muffins even I won’t be so grumpy as that often happens in the mornings 🙂
I know, right? I got an extra 2 weeks for free out of that bad boy! But then I had to pay the price with the 1:30am wakeup call and 2 shivering pups. That would have been totally epic if I had just gotten up and started cooking bacon in the middle of the night. Hahaha!
LOL! {I apologize in advance for laughing at your struggle…sort of}
CO running out of batteries are the worst because when you unplug them they feel the need to beep really loudly, like you might not know that you just unplugged a ginormous box from the wall. Ugh. I don’t even want to address the idiocy of making the air intake for the house in the kitchen. Probably one of the dumbest builder stories that I’ve heard. But these muffins would totally make up for the early AM wake up! Mmmm muffins.
Mmmm…muffins are the best! I wish I had a toasted muffin right now, in fact. But alas, I ate all of these after the less-than-fitful night’s sleep. Every.single.one. 🙂 Ok, I’m off to cook some bacon so my whole house will smell delicious. Haha!