Morning glory muffins are my absolute favourite muffins! They’re hearty, healthy and delicious. On Bell Let’s Talk Day, I took some time for myself and my mental health by creating these wholesome cookies in my happy place – my kitchen! Baking/cooking has been very therapeutic for the treatment of my mental illnesses so I thought this was a great day for an inspiring new recipe!

Yield: 3-4 dozen

Ingredients

3 large carrots, shredded
2-3 small (2 medium) Granny Smith apples, shredded
1 cup unsweetened applesauce (or 1/2 cup applesauce and 1/2 cup crushed pineapple)
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups quick oats (or whatever kind of oats you have)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp ground cinnamon (or more!)
1 tsp ground ginger
a pinch salt
3/4 cup flaked unsweetened coconut
3/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped into small pieces (smaller than when they come chopped)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, combined the shredded apple, carrots, applesauce and vanilla. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, combine oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and salt. Add wet ingredients and stir until all of the dry ingredients are evenly coated. Make sure you scrape the very bottom of the bowl several times to make sure you get all the flour and oats from the bottom.

3. Add the raisins, coconut and walnuts to your batter and stir until evenly distributed.

4. Using a large dinner spoon, scoop out a spoon worth of batter. See the photo for sizing. Repeat until your cookie sheet is full.

5. Bake in centre of the oven for 20 minutes. Move to cooling rack. Continue to bake cookies until all of the batter is used up.

Bon appetit!