Whole Grain Morning Glory Muffins Recipe

1 1/3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup packed natural brown sugar
1/1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 Fuji apple, cored, peeled and diced*
1/2 cup seedless raisins
1/2 cup grated carrots
1/2 cup walnuts, finely chopped**
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons dried flaked unsweetened coconut, divided

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; break up any brown sugar lumps with your fingers of a wooden spoon.

In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, oil and vanilla, then add to flour mixture and stir just until combined.

Add apples, raisins, carrots, walnuts and 1/4 cup of the coconut and stir gently until well combined.

Spoon batter into 16 paper-lined muffin tins,*** filling each about 2/3 full.  Top evenly with remaining coconut and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until cooked through.

*I used the organic local apples I had on hand, and sliced them rather than diced

**I omitted the walnuts

***I used a pan of 6 giant muffins instead, and omitted the paper lining as I wanted a crunchier outside to my muffins.

Nutrition: Per serving (1 muffin):
200 calories (110 from fat), 12g total fat, 1.5g saturated fat, 25 mg cholesterol, 170 mg sodium, 21g total carbohydrate (2g dietary fiber, 14g sugar), 3 g protein.

I've been hunting for a good recipe for these muffins for a while now.  I buy one almost every morning at work from the Alterra Coffee shop on campus (The Grind).  The coffee shop doesn't offer the nutrition information, but they will show you an ingredients list if you ask for it.  This recipe from Whole Foods is the closest I've found to the ingredients used by Alterra.  This one is missing ingredients such as wheat germ, and has extra ingredients such as walnuts, but now that I've made them once according to the recipe, I feel confident that I can experiment and tweak it to get them tasting even closer to my beloved Alterra muffins!