Sweet Potato Muffin

I LOVE sweet potatoes and I can seriously eat them all the time! Maybe it's an Asian thing and I'm sure a lot of Asians can relate--but especially around this time of the year, we eat a lot of sweet potatoes. We eat them boiled/steamed; incorporated them into bread or cake; fry them; and even make them out of lattes (sweet potato latte, I know!). Not to mention, you can add sweet potato to your pizza--and trust me, it actually tastes REALLY good (future post coming up).

I found this awesome recipe and decided to try them myself. This was actually my second time baking the sweet potato muffins, and it came out perfect both times. It's not overly sweet and not overly oily, but yet smooth and soft with bits of sweet potato chunks embedded in the muffin, yum!

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt (or regular salt is fine)
• 3/4 cup vegetable/canola/olive oil
• 3/4 cup milk (I used 1% milk but can use whole/2%/nonfat milk)
• 2 large eggs (room temperature)
• 2 small Korean/Asian sweet potatoes or 1 large sweet potato (steamed & chopped into 1/2-inch)
• Chocolate and chopped pecans/walnuts (optional)

Directions:

1. Steam,cool and chop sweet potato into 1/2-inch cubes. You can easily steam the sweet potato using the microwave to save time. You can pop it in for about 7-8 minutes OR until you can easily poke the sweet potato all the way through. This is the lengthiest part of this recipe.

2. Once the chopped sweet potatoes are cooled, preheat the oven to 375 F.

3. Sift the all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt together.

4. Beat in the eggs, sugar, and oil together.

5. Gently add in the dry ingredients into the wet mixture in 3 batches, alternating with the milk (half of dry ingredients; add all the milk; add in the rest of the dry ingredients).

6. Mix until well blended.

7. With a wooden spoon or spatula, stir in the sweet potato chunks and fold them into the mixture.

8. Fill the prepared muffin cups about two-thirds full (too much can cause you to bake longer, making the muffin dry).

9. Bake for 18-22 minutes until golden brown or until a cake tester placed in the center of the muffin comes out clean. Options: You can fold pecans, walnuts, or chocolate in the batter.