Vegan Mofo Day 25: Sweet Potato Chocolate Swirl Muffins

After Thanksgiving I noticed there was a bunch of sweet potato puree on sale at one of the natural food stores, so I bought as many as my little arms could carry home with me…which, without a car, was not as many as I would have liked. I can’t resist a good sale like that, it was so much cheaper then what they normally charge and I knew I would find a way to use it up.  I took a gander in the fridge last night, and just so happen to spot a container of leftover sweet potato puree. I wouldn’t dare let my precious sale item go to waste, so instead of making a new dinner to blog about I made muffins. Ok, to be honest, I really just wasn’t in the mood to cook last night and the muffins seemed like a quick and easy thing to make. There’s only a few more days of Mofo left and blogger’s burnout is starting to kick in but I’m determine to power through to the end.

I found a recipe for Perfect Pumpkin Muffins from the VegNews recipe club and after taking some things out, putting some things in, turning it upside and shaking it around, I came up with a nice little muffin to share with you. I originally wanted to make it a little healthier by replacing some of the white flour with something a bit more whole grainy, but after all the changes I had already made, I didn’t want to push my luck. First of all I wanted to use sweet potato, an easy sub with the pumpkin already in the recipe but I didn’t want just a plain sweet potato muffin, I wanted to jazz it up!…even typing that word gives me a strong urge to do jazz hands, anyone else? No? Just me? Ok….

I’ve seen lots of pumpkin muffins with chocolate chips in them and I figure if chocolate goes with pumpkin then it’s gotta work with sweet potato too! Yeah I could have stopped right there and thrown in a handful of chocolate chips but it still didn’t seem jazzy enough, but a chocolate swirl, now that deserves jazz hands AND a little jig (yes P knows I’m crazy but we have an understanding). Even with the chocolate added I found these weren’t overly sweet, which is basically what I was hoping for as I didn’t want them creeping into cupcake territory. They rose nicely and were light and fluffy, which is pretty awesome since I was expecting complete failure due to all my meddling. I brought them to work this morning and even without letting anyone know they were there, they were gone within the hour. Damn, the people I work with sure do like muffins.

Sweet Potato Chocolate Swirl Muffins
Makes 12 muffins
Adapted from VegNews Recipe Club 

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups (14 oz can) sweet potato puree
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 cup non-dairy milk
• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin tin, or line with paper liners.In a large bowl, mix together sweet potato purée, maple syrup, olive oil, vanilla, and milk. In a separate bowl, sift together all-purpose flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and ginger. Add dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and stir until just combined.

Take one cup of the muffin batter and place in a separate bowl. Melt chocolate chips in the microwave, mixing after 30 second intervals until fully melted. Pour melted chocolate into the one cup of separated batter and mix until just combined.Alternate spooning in the sweet potato batter and the chocolate batter into the cups.  Bake for 8 minutes, decrease temperature to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool for 5 minutes, then remove the muffins from the pan and then let them cool till room temperature.

About these ads