Whole Wheat Spiced Sweet Potato Muffins

This week is AP testing and since my teachers are therefore not giving any work and I don't really plan on studying, I have more time when I get home to cook and bake. I literally sat in the testing room for an hour after I took one of my exams waiting for the time to be up that I could leave. The people around me probably thought I was impressively fast, but I actually just ran out o things to say on the free response section. (That's not too good of a sign now is it...)

Spiced sweet potato muffin with a brown sugar, oat, and almond topping.

Anyways, I had some sweet potato puree left from the brownie recipe, so I needed to come up with another recipe so I wouldn't waste it. I decided to make muffins. You can make them in any size you want, but I love to make mini muffins since you can easily take one to go  and pop in your mouth.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

All the topping ingredients before being mixed.

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ cup brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup sweet potato puree

½ cup milk

2 eggs

Topping-

¼ cup oatmeal

3 tablespoons brown sugar

¼ cup almonds

½ teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a muffin pan well.

In a large bowl, mix together the sweet potato, milk, brown sugar, and eggs. Add in the vanilla and other spices and the baking soda and baking powder. Gradually add in the whole wheat pastry flower. Once all the ingredients are well combined, pour the batter into the greased muffin tins until each is about ¾ full.

In a separate bowl, combine the ¼ cup oatmeal, 3 tablespoons brown sugar, ¼ cup almonds, and ½ teaspoon cinnamon. You can either chop the almonds and then just stir all the ingredients together, or put all the ingredients into a food processor to create a more homogenous mixture.

Sprinkle this “topping” on top of the unbaked muffins.

Now, place the muffins in the oven for 11-13 minutes.

Remove the oven and wait until cooled before removing from tin.

My sweet potato creations, all from one can of puree.

Sweet Potato Brownies

The other day my mom accidentally bought sweet potato puree instead of pumpkin puree. Since I didn't have any recipes using sweet potato puree and I wasn't really sure how to use it, I decided to turn to Martha, Martha Stewart I mean.

Since my family is pretty healthy anyways, I thought her recipe for sweet potato brownies looked worthwhile to try. I added in walnuts (which turned out to be a good addition) and they turned out to be immensely fudgey and good tasting brownies that you don't feel icky after eating.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Using good cocoa really
makes a difference.

½ stick butter

2/3 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder

½ cup whole-wheat pastry flour

¼ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup sweet-potato puree

1 large egg

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

½ teaspoon instant coffee powder

½ cup walnuts

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square pan; set aside. In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt butter. Remove pan from heat, and stir in cocoa. Let cool slightly.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

Stir in sugar and sweet-potato puree, then egg. In a small bowl, stir together vanilla and coffee until coffee is dissolved; add to cocoa mixture.

Add flour mixture to cocoa mixture and stir until no traces of flour remain. Spoon into prepared pan; smooth the top.

Make sure you smooth out the top
before placing in the oven.

Bake until surface of brownies looks barely dry and an inserted knife comes out with a few moist crumbs, about 20 minutes. Cool to room temperature before serving.

To make these more decadent, you could always add in a half cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips, but I would suggest you first try them to see if you want that added taste.

Very fudgey with walnut chunks.

Sweet potatoes are actually considered a "super food". One medium-sized sweet potato has ons of beta-carotene and a day's value of vitamin A as well as a third of your daily vitamin C's needs. One sweet potato even has as much fiber as a  ½ cup of oatmeal.