Sweet Potato Muffins: Fall Is Finally Here!

Hello fall!

While we’re still having a few blasts of heat here in LA, it’s finally starting to feel like fall around here. And to me, the best part of fall is that it’s an excuse to make sweet potato EVERYTHING. Chili, curry, fries, casserole – you name it, if it has sweet potatoes, I want it.  Don’t get me wrong — I’ll take a good pumpkin treat too. But there’s something about sweet potatoes that just beat out pumpkin for me.

So I decided to make them into muffins. The result? A moist and sponge-y muffin that’s great for breakfast or dessert (or snack, or lunch, or dinner — no judgments here). Add your favorite nut butter on top for a protein boost!

Sweet potato muffins

I’ve only ever made these muffins with freshly-roasted sweet potatoes, cooled and mashed by hand. But you can definitely sub in pre-mashed/canned sweet potato. It should speed things up, and give you more uniform muffins anyway.

Mashing sweet potatoes

It doesn’t look pretty but it sure tastes good. Try to keep any stringy bits out of the batter (but personally, I don’t mind the small chunks).

Mix up the sweet potato muffin batter

 

If you’ve tried my Lemon Ginger muffins, you know I’m a sucker for seasonal muffin recipes. Muffins are just a great, quick way to satisfy my seasonal cravings on a whim!

 

Sweet potato muffins

 

Sweet Potato Muffins

Servings 15 muffins

Ingredients

  • 1-1.5 cups mashed sweet potato about 1 medium-large sweet potato (roasting instructions below, or use canned puree)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon table salt
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips plus more for topping if desired

Instructions

  1. If mashing your own sweet potato: Preheat over to 375 degrees F. Place potato on a lined baking sheet (foil or parchment is fine), and use a fork to poke holes all around the potato. Roast for 45 minutes to an hour, or until tender when pierced with a fork. Let cool for 15-20 mins before removing the skin and mashing.
  2. Then, preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a muffin tin with ~15 standard muffin cups. Spray each with nonstick cooking spray.
  3. In a medium bowl, whisk all dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, salt) to combine.
  4. In a separate, larger bowl, whisk eggs with olive oil, brown sugar and milk. Add mashed sweet potato and mix until smooth-ish.
  5. Then, add your dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and fold with a wooden spoon or spatula until almost combined; add chocolate chips and do a few more turns of the spoon. Be careful not to over mix, or the muffins will be tougher.
  6. Using an ice-cream scoop or ¼ cup measuring cup, drop batter into prepared muffin cups, filling about ¾ of the way. Add additional chocolate chips to the top of each (I do 4-5 chips per muffin). Bake until set and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Allow muffins to cool for a few minutes in the pan before moving to a rack to cool more.

Recipe Notes

Muffins are great on their own, or topped warmed a few seconds in the microwave with your favorite nut butter! They’ll keep in an airtight container at room temperature for ~3 days (and often are even better on day 2).