The other day I made sweet potato banana chocolate muffins, and I think they might be my new favourite.
Notice that I’m calling them sweet potato banana chocolate muffins. This is a big deal (in an internal battle of semantic certainty kind of a sense). I have always been a fervent stalwart of team “yam” in the yam vs sweet potato debate, but recently I’ve been getting an increasing sense -faced with some fairly irrefutable proof- that I may have been in the wrong this whole time. So it’s with a bit of discomfort at my perceived betrayal of my own linguistic beliefs, that today I am conceding, I guess it’s a sweet potato after all.
Anyway, weird internal struggle over semiology aside, I love these muffins.
A couple of weeks ago I made these spelt apple carrot muffins that were glorious. They’ve become a bit of a favourite in our house, and as such, I wanted to come up with something along the same lines but with different flavours that we would enjoy as much. So using the proportions from that recipe, switching spelt for whole wheat (just for something different), bananas for the apple sauce, and sweet potatoes for the carrots, this recipe was born. I was elated when, on the first attempt, they came out of the oven soft and well risen, and not a dozen puddles of mush (usually when coming up with recipes, especially for baking, there are a number of failed attempts before I hit on the right combination… I have a long standing and ongoing battle with pumpkin bread, if ever I crack that one you’ll hear about it!).
I’m pretty proud of these muffins, and love that they’re something that my whole family enjoys, getting our ‘I don’t like any vegetables apart from tatties’ four year old to enjoy sweet potatoes in any form is a bit of a triumph in its self!
So there we are! Sweet potato banana chocolate muffins!
- 250g or 1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 50g or 1/4 cup melted coconut oil
- 125g or 1/3 cup set honey
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 medium bananas mashed
- 80g or 3/4 cup of coarsely grated, peeled sweet potato
- 75g or 1/3 cup dark chocolate chips or cocoa nibs
- Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin liners or parchment paper.
- In a large bowl mix together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt, until well combined
- In a separate bowl or jug, beat together the oil, honey, egg, vanilla and banana. If the liquid ingredients have not been at room temperature the oil might solidify and get lumpy. If this happens blitz it with a stick blender, or in a blender, until it’s lump free.
- Stir the wet ingredients into the flour mixture until just combined, and then fold in the sweet potato and chocolate chips being sure they’re evenly distributed.
- Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin tin and place it in the oven. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the muffins are risen and spring back when lightly prodded or a skewer inserted into one of the middle ones comes out clean.
- Remove the muffins from the tin and set them on a wire rack to cool.