Muffins to make mornings glorious.
Imagine standard morning glory muffins, and make them even better. The result? This sweet potato morning glory muffin recipe: incredibly moist, perfectly sweet, and full of texture and flavor from ingredients like apple, coconut, and millet, and baking spices.
If you do not know about morning glory muffins yet, be glad you do now. Morning glory muffins may be less common than blueberry or corn muffins, but are no less satisfying and delicious. In fact, they may be better.
You’ll also like: Favorite Blueberry Muffins and Pumpkin Donut Muffins
Origin Story: When Were Morning Glory Muffins Invented?
The accepted morning glory muffin origin story is that the baked treat was invented in the crunchy, earth mother days of the 1960s and ’70s at the, you guessed it, Morning Glory Café on Nantucket. Variations are endless, but the general idea is a whole wheat muffin spiced with cinnamon, and loaded with nourishing mix-ins like diced apple, coconut, nuts, seeds, raisins, and carrots.
These muffins may have gotten their name from the eponymous restaurant. But they could be named morning glory muffins because they make mornings, well, glorious. And now that you’ve discovered this sweet potato version, you will agree.
I took a cue from the “little of this, little of that, add what you want” ethos of the original morning glory muffin, and decided to see if I could incorporate baked sweet potato for a seasonal, super moist variation.
The answer is yes. In fact, these sweet potato morning glory muffins are absolutely delicious. To develop this recipe, I substituted mashed sweet potato for the carrots, and adjusted the sugar, leavening, and oil in consideration of the sweet potatoes’ qualities. I love nutty, crunchy millet in anything whole wheat, so I added some of that as well, in place of seeds.
Sweet Potato Morning Glory Muffin: Recipe Notes
- Substitutions. Keep the ratio of whole wheat flour, sugar, baking soda, egg, and sweet potato. From there, the world is your
oystermuffin. Sub pears for apple, seeds for the nuts, leave coconut out if you like, and so on. Pumpkin can be substituted for the sweet potato. - The sweet potatoes. I have made these two ways: with plain, mashed roasted sweet potato, and with leftover candied sweet potato casserole. Both work. Candied sweet potato casserole has a higher sugar content, though, so if you go the Thanksgiving leftovers route, I would remove a tablespoon of brown sugar from the muffin recipe.
- Pro tip: Soak your raisins. This is an important pastry chef pro tip and baking technique. Whenever you work with dried fruit like raisins or currants, soak them in warm water for about 10 to 20 minutes, then drain before using. This keeps them from sucking moisture from the batter. Dried fruit is thirsty and wants to rehydrate.
Did you enjoy this recipe for Sweet Potato Morning Glory Muffins? Share below.
Sweet Potato Morning Glory Muffins
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil, such as canola
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup flax meal
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon powdered ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
- 16 ounces (2 cups) cooked mashed sweet potato
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup millet, optional
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1 apple, diced small
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans, optional
- 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F and grease or line muffin tins. The recipe will make about 18 muffins.
- Soak the raisins in warm water and set aside. While the raisins are soaking, beat together the eggs, brown sugar, oil, vanilla, flax meal, lemon juice, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg until smooth and emulsified. Add the mashed sweet potato and mix until fully combined.
- Add the baking soda, flour, salt, and millet and stir just until combined. Scrape the bowl to make sure.
- Fold in the drained raisins, diced apple, nuts, and coconut.
- Spoon into muffin tin cups and bake for 22 to 25 minutes, until the tops feel springy and craggy, and a cake tester comes out clean.
- Serve warm with good butter and jam, though they are delicious on their own as well. These will keep for several days in an airtight container.
18 comments
Maggie
I made these muffins over a week ago, refrigerated and just finished the last one, They actually get better every day. Followed the recipe exactly. Love them……
Unpeeled
Wonderful! I am so glad you enjoyed.
Marte
Your recipe mentions flax meal in the directions, but it’s not listed in the ingredients. Is it necessary?
Unpeeled
Hi, Marte! It’s there…nestled between the vanilla and the lemon juice!
Ilsa
A great muffin!!! I used canned pumpkin.
Christine
We made these and they were very good. I love the diverse sources of nutrition and using up the pile of sweet potatoes we’ve accumulated. With all the other ingredients, the result was still sweet enough for us with half the sugar. Next time I will try cutting down on the oil as well — I liked the moisture, but felt I was really tasting the canola oil (the least yummy of all the flavors in there!).
Chelsea
What would the ratio be for regular flour versus whole wheat flour?
Unpeeled
Hi and great question. You can substitute white flour 1:1 in this recipe, or even go half white, half wheat. The texture will be a little fluffier, which might be a delicious thing. Happy baking.
Frankie R.
Good muffins! Love the flavor. Could we substitute pumpkin? Thanks.
Unpeeled
Great idea and YES! You can definitely sub canned pumpkin or mashed roasted fresh pumpkin. Just make sure the liquid has been strained out if you use fresh, since it has a higher moisture content than sweet potato.
Ann Korowski
This is a very good muffin recipe that I would recommend to everyone. I thought that the spices were just right, and even though it is a lot of ingredients, I think it is worth it. Thank you!
Denise Finger
This recipe made 24 muffins. I had filled the muffin cups 3/4 full but ended up filling them full. I was afraid they’d run over but they came out perfect. Delicious fresh out of the oven.
Mary P..
YUM. Will make again.
Victoria
These were just great. A lot of ingredients compared to other muffins like corn or blueberry, but easy to make and I think even better than most muffins because of all the good stuff in there! I also really liked the mild spice flavor.