More Baking and a Flashback

I am seriously craving something sweet!  Grrr...  I confess I cheated and ate a few chocolate chips.  (At least I had SOME restraint and I really did only eat a few.)  I had some mashed sweet potato in my fridge leftover from making Addictive Sweet Potato Burritos, and I wanted to use it up.  So I turned to the allrecipes.com ingredient search.  I love that feature.  :)  I found a recipe, we tweaked it a bit as usual, and made some pretty good muffins.

Whole Wheat Sweet Potato Muffins

 

Ingredients:

1 sweet potato (or approx 1 c. mashed)

2 c whole wheat flour (I use my fresh ground hard white wheat)

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp (rounded) ginger

1/4 tsp (rounded) cloves

1/4 c coconut oil (I used expeller pressed, so it wouldn't taste coconut-y)

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 - 1 c honey

1/3 c vanilla yogurt (you could use milk instead)

Directions:

Bake sweet potato, if you're starting with a whole spud.  I wrap mine in tinfoil, place on a cookie sheet, and bake at 350* until it feels 'squishy' when I squeeze it with my oven-mitted hand.  (Technical I know, I can't help it!)  Let it cool for a bit, then peel the foil off.  The skin will be a little puckered.  Pinch a bit of the skin and pull it off.  The skin should easily peel right off that potato.  I'm also a snob, in that I hate the fibrous, stringy part.  So I put my peeled potato into a bowl, and beat it with my electric beaters.  Every 20 seconds or so, I slowly lift the beaters out of the bowl (allowing as much excess to whip off into the bowl) and turn it off.  I then use my fingers to clean the beaters, throwing all the stringy stuff away.  Keep doing that until you're satisfied with the amount of 'yucky stuff' you've gotten rid of.  :)

If your oven isn't already set to 350*, set it now.  Mix dry ingredients in a bowl.  Stir in wet ingredients, just until blended.  

She is my little professional egg crack-er.

Aaah... these pictures remind me a bit of THIS picture...

Seems so long ago, and she's definitely much more helpful now.  She went straight into the sink for a bath after that photo.  She had flour everywhere.  Oh to go back in time for a day.  :)

Anyway, back to the recipe... 
Spoon the batter into a muffin tin lined with paper liners.  If you don't feel like using a spoon, we found out that fingers work pretty well too.  ;)  This recipe should make about 18 regular sized muffins.

Bake for 12-18 minutes, until top springs back when touched.  Let cool in the muffin tin for about 5 minutes before removing them to a cooling rack.  They do need to cool a minute before you peel them, or they'll stick pretty well to the liner.  Trust me... I just know...  ;)  As I was transferring the second batch to the cooling rack, Brielle saw that it was almost full.  Ever the thoughtful little girl, she tells me, "Mom, I can just eat another muffin so you can fit all those on there!"  Ain't she sweet?  And yes, I did give in and give her a second muffin.

These would be great with a crunchy topping I'm sure.  Either sprinkled with Sugar in the Raw, or with a Crisp topping (you know, the oats-brown sugar-cinnamon-nutmeg-flour-butter combo that's so good?!).  Yummy!  I liked that they are a spicy, sweet, healthy treat.  However, we still like our Thanksgiving Pumpkin Muffins better.  Next time we might try adding raisins to them.  Anyway, I'm going to go have another (ahem) a muffin...