Morning Glory Slice

It is matter of few weeks. I got tired of fixing breakfast every morning. No we are not cereal-out-of-the-box or bread kind of people. We are Dose-Paddu-Chapati-Akki rotti kind of people. I felt like I needed a break from the first dish of the day but I wanted to make something rather healthful. So I decided to make morning glory muffins. But I did not have a proper muffin tin, I converted the muffin into a slice. Just that the slices were a little to small and we had to eat two of them to get the feeling of eating a decent breakfast. I love the muffins at King Arthur . But like always, I need to add and subtract from the recipe to make it my own.This particular recipe yielded the most tender and moist muffins ever. They were also rather rich. It is fine for a few days but long term this is again something that did make you regret every time you try to get into that new pair of jeans.

We will need,

Craisins 1/2 cup
Whole wheat pastry flour 1.5 cups
All purpose flour 1/2 cup
Sugar 3/4 cup (Can be increased upto 1 cup. But I found 3/4 to be rather too sweet for my taste)
Baking Soda 2 tsp
Cinnamon 1.5 tsp
Ginger ground 1/2 tsp
Nutmeg 1/8 tsp
Salt 1/2 tsp
Grated carrots 1 cups tightly packed.
Large apple grated and pealed 1
Kopra 1/2 cup
Almonds 1/2 cup chopped fine
Sunflower seeds 1/3 cup
Sunflower oil 1/2 cup
Eggs 3
Vanilla extract
Juice of 1 orange
Juice of 1/2 lime

Method:

• Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease and line a loaf pan. (One of those largish loaf pans. If smaller use two loaf pans)
• Soak the Craisins in hot water. Set it aside. 
• Mix in all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. (flour, baking soda, sugar, salt and spices)
• In another mixing bowl stir in the wet ingredients like eggs, oil, carrots, apple, orange juice, lime juice. Combine all the ingredients well. 
• Stir the nuts and seeds into the wet ingredients. 
• Drain the craisins and toss them into the dry mixture. Make a well in the dry mixture and pour the wet ingredients. Gently mix everything together until just combined. I read somewhere that anything more than 50 strokes will make the muffins dry and tough. I agree. 
• Pour it into the loaf pan and bake till a toothpick inserted comes out dry about 30  minutes in my oven. 
• Remove onto a wire rack and allow it to cool. Once completely cooled slice the loaf and store it in an air tight jar for at least a week. Mine did not last past the week end. We are a grazing family you know.

Well actually I cannot think if this is a good breakfast recipe or is it a dessert recipe. Because we ate it both ways, I will label it thus.