Long live the sweet potato.
I already knew I loved, loved, loved sweet potatoes. Specifically, I love sweet potato fries. I love the super crispy (read: horribly unhealthy) kind I can get at restaurants. And I love the softer, healthier version I make at home. I love a sweet potato cooked over an open fire on a camping trip. I love a sweet potato roasted with other veggies. And I love a sweet potato in my baked goods.
Since sweet potatoes pair perfectly with cinnamon, it made sense to bake them into some muffins. And when I’m making muffins, I try to make them a little on the healthier side so I don’t feel guilty eating 1 or 2, or 3 or 4, when they come out of the oven (not that something like that ever happens around here). These muffins are free of refined sugar, and are simply sweetened with pure maple syrup and dates. Yum, yum, yum. Plus, they have whole wheat pastry flour, which keeps them feeling nice and light.
But just in case you aren’t going for a healthy treat, as soon as I started eating these, I started thinking about how good they would be with some dark chocolate chips in place of the blueberries. You have my full blessing to go wild with the chocolate.
- 1 large sweet potato, cooked and mashed (about 1½ cups)*
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
- ⅔ cup pure maple syrup
- ⅔ cup skim milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- pinch of sea salt
- 5 dates, pitted and chopped
- ¾ cup blueberries, fresh or frozen**
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and fill a muffin pan with liners or spray with cooking spray.
- In a medium bowl, stir together the mashed sweet potato, extra virgin olive oil, maple syrup, skim milk, and vanilla.
- In a large bowl, stir together pastry flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
- Stir the wet ingredients into the dry mixture until well combined.
- Stir in the date pieces and blueberries.
- Divide mixture evenly between muffins cups. Bake 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
**If using frozen blueberries, don't let them thaw before adding to the batter.
-Ally
Megan Bloem says
I love the printer friendly version of the recipe, is this a new feature or have I somehow just missed it before?
Ally says
I added the printable feature a few weeks ago. Glad it’s a hit!
Rita says
Two questions,
1.) can I use regular whole wheat flour instead of the whole wheat pastry flour?
2.) how about agave or molasses instead of the maple syrup?
Thanks. I would really like to try this recipe but with ingredients that I have on hand.
Ally says
Rita, you can definitely use regular whole wheat flour. It will make a slightly denser muffin, but it will still be delicious. I haven’t tried using agave or molasses, but I’d probably lean more toward agave since it is a little lighter. Let me know how it turns out!
Ellie says
I didn’t have dates so I bumped the blueberries up to 1 cup. I was out of whole wheat pastry flour too so I used half AP, half regular whole wheat. They turned out great! Mine were perfectly done in 15 minutes rather than 20.
Thanks for the recipe Ally!