LOADED MUFFINS

If you don’t like cake-y muffins, find most muffins to be too sweet, and you need some serious chunky texture and flavor in your baked goods, look no further. These are hearty enough to be paired with some tea or coffee for breakfast or, my favorite use, a mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack. They’re sweet and flavorful, but not cloyingly so and the cinnamon and dried fruit comes through.

A nutty, seed-laden cross section.

Ingredients
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ cup raisins or chopped dates
1 cup grated carrot (about 2 medium carrots)
1 cup grated apple (about 1 large apple)
½ cup chopped walnuts
½ cup chopped pecans
¼ cup chia seeds
¼ cup hemp seeds
¼ cup ground flax seed
3 eggs
1 large ripe banana, mashed well
⅔ cup olive oil, coconut oil, or a mix of both
1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions

Mix together flour, sugar, cinnamon, and baking powder in a large bowl.

Add raisins or dates and stir to coat with flour mixture. (This prevents clumping.) Stir in carrot, apple, nuts, and seeds.

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

Combine the liquid mixture with dry ingredients and stir well. This will be very thick.

Fill 12 regular size muffin cups. You can heap the mixture into each muffin cup, as these muffins will not puff up much, so there’s no risk of overflow. You can also make 16 muffins, if you don’t want higher/heaped tops.

Bake at 350 degrees until the tops are browned and the muffins feel firm, about 35-40 minutes.