Test Kitchen Tuesday

Did you survive the holidays? Or perhaps a more appropriate question is, do your pants still button? I did, and mine do, so I guess that is what we’d call a holiday victory indeed!

I am kind of surprised to be sharing another muffin recipe with you this week. Honestly, I usually shy away from muffins, because they usually have lots of calories, too much sugar, sodium, and fat, and if I’m going to splurge, I’d rather have many other things besides a muffin. (Donuts come to mind…)

Have you ever looked at the nutrition of your favorite store-bought or coffeehouse muffin? If you haven’t and decide to, better put on some kneepads ahead of time, because I’m pretty sure you’ll be so shocked you’ll hit your knees. While technically not a muffin, I used to think the Starbucks reduced fat banana chocolate chip coffeecake was a pretty decent “muffin-like” selection. Uh, yeah, not so much.

Sure, it doesn’t have much fat, but holy Chiquita bananas, it has almost 13 teaspoons of sugar, and 1/4 off your daily allowance in sodium! The day I looked this up (after having a piece), I spent an extra hour on the treadmill trying to undo my mistake.

Those nutrient-dense cranberry quinoa muffins from last week got my mind churning. If instead of a sugar delivery system, muffins were more of a nutrient delivery system, how awesome would that be? And, if I found a way to make that nutritious muffin, with oh, I don’t know, sweet potatoes, how much even more awesome would that be? With the holidays (and holiday treats) now solidly in the past, it seemed apropos to develop a truly healthy and hearty muffin that seems a bit like a splurge, but isn’t.

Alas, I present you with a Test Kitchen Tuesday original, straight from my noggin to your table, the sweet potato muffin.

These muffins are a good source of vitamin A (190% DV!!), Fiber (7g), are relatively low in sugar for a muffin (18g) and have a decent amount of protein (8.2g). I did my best on the sodium front, and a jumbo muffin netted out at 387mg. The pesky sodium sneaks in because you have to add something to make them rise a bit (in this case, baking soda).

A final note about sugar. I only added the bare minimum in the way of sugar. I like to add a schmear of almond butter or reduced fat cream cheese to mine. You may feel you need to add more sugar, in which case, I would suggest that you try to only go up to 1/3 cup of brown sugar or 1/2 cup tops. Or better yet, keep with the bare minimum first, and see how it goes. Please, for me. And, since we are bloggy BFFs, I know you’ll listen, right?!

Sweet Potato Oat Muffins

Downloadable Word Document Recipe

Time Required:

• 10 minutes to prepare batter
• 35-40 minutes to bake

Skill Level (out of 5):

Makes: 6 jumbo muffins or 12 regular muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 ¼ cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup chopped pecans (or nut of your choice)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ginger
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 tablespoons honey or agave
• 1 cup skim milk
• 2 medium (5”) sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1 inch cubes

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350F
• Liberally spray a muffin tin with nonstick spray (or, use a spray mister as I do)
• Add about cubed sweet potatoes to a microwave safe bowl with about ½ cup water and microwave for 3 minutes
• Meanwhile, mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl
• When the potatoes are soft from microwaving, drain water and add them to a blender or food processor with 1 cup of milk and puree until smooth.
• Pour sweet potato puree and honey/agave into the dry ingredients and stir until just-mixed. Do not over stir
• Pour mixed batter into muffin tin and bake for 35-40 minutes for jumbo muffins, or 25-30 minutes for regular muffins, until the a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean

Nutrition:

For jumbo muffins. Split data in half for regular muffins.

(Click to enlarge)