Jacqui Muffins

Holy mother of muffins, we've truly outdone ourselves. I'd call them gems, but they are more like diamonds -- big, beautiful, shining diamond muffins. I'm so proud!

So sometimes clothing designers do this thing where they name pieces after people who inspire them, like "Emily dress" or "Sara tee," and I thought why not do the same for food. These are Jacqui muffins, inspired my roommate. Since a "Jacqui dress" would be high-fashion but classic, with tons of awesome elements that come together perfectly, I tried to achieve the same composition in this muffin. Besides, Jacqui loves to order muffins at overpriced coffee shops, especially when they come in pretty wrappings like the ones we used. But if you feel awk calling a muffin after someone you don't know, you could just call these Everything muffins, because it is essentially what they are. And when Everything is assembled with careful proportion, it's a wonderful thing.

I started out with a modified batter (I made it half whole wheat) from our carrot cake muffins, and added from there, adjusting the wet ingredients to compensate. I threw in anything that I thought would taste good, including nuts, seeds, oats, raisins and orange zest. The result was a super intense, moist, scrumptious muffin that is perfect for anytime. Have fun baking them for the red-headed Canadian Whartonite roomie in your life.

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp orange zest
3/4 tsp baking soda
4 eggs
1 cup canola oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup coconut
1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and coarsely shopped
1/3 cup pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup golden raisins
2 cups raw carrot, grated
1 large apple, peeled and grated

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350, line muffin pan with cups. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in orange zest, walnuts, coconut, rolled oats, raisins and pumpkin seeds. In a separate bowl, lightly beat eggs, and whisk in vanilla and oil. Add wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Add carrot and apple, and mix. Spoon batter into muffin cups. Bake until an inserted knife comes out clean. For normal-sized muffins, this should be about 20 minutes, but cooking time will vary.