Kids love muffins! Every Thursday around 8AM I deliver a dozen muffins to my friend and neighbor Tracie, who runs a day care with her daughter. The children range in age from infant through Pre-K age, and the older ones always greet me with great excitement! Over the past year, I’ve developed a few recipes that I’m really happy with, after much experimentation and from observing my eager young critics.
Today, the muffins I baked were a familiar recipe–sweet potato–but I used purple sweet potatoes and added sliced frozen cranberries. They are topped with a little sprinkle of brown sugar, and when they cracked open, well, they are blue inside! Can’t help but wonder how the kids will respond today. This the first time I’ve used the delicious Japanese purple sweet potatoes (with white skins) for muffins. I roasted a couple large ones for about 45 minutes at 400 degrees and then put them through a potato press. Because they are a little drier than the orange ones I usually use, I added a couple tablespoons of yogurt.
Here is the recipe:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup spelt flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon pumpkin-pie spice
(or make your own: 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon + 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg + 1/4 teaspoon ginger + pinch of ground cloves and allspice)
1 1/3 cup sweet potato, baked or steamed and mashed or put it through the potato ricer. If you have no sweet potatoes, you can use canned pumpkin.
1/2- 3/4 cup sliced frozen cranberries or 1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup grape seed oil or other vegetable oil (but not olive oil)
2 Tablespoons of plain yogurt or buttermilk (if potatoes are dry)
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon raw sugar or brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Heat oven to 375 degrees. Put liners in 12 standard-sized muffin cups.
Stir or whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spice in small/medium bowl.
In a larger bowl, whisk together mashed sweet potato, oil, eggs and 1 cup sugar. Add dry ingredients to wet and stir until just combined. Using an ice cream scoop, divide batter among muffin cups (each about 3/4 full).
Stir together raw sugar and teaspoon of cinnamon. Sprinkle over each muffin.
Bake until puffed and golden brown and wooden pick or skewer inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
Cool in pan on a rack five minutes, then transfer muffins from pan to rack and cool to warm or room temperature.
This recipe was inspired by Smitten Kitchen.
Avant Garden 