Purple Sweet Potato Muffins

Do you ever have those impulse buys at the grocery store, where you see something you have no idea what you are going to do with but have to have anyways?  Maybe those should be called happy little accidents?  My happy little accident happened to be a bag of purple sweet potatoes.  Purple is my favorite color so of course I had to get them when I saw them.  How often do you see purple sweet potatoes??  I don't see them very often and feel like I have been missing out.

At the time I had no idea what I would use them for.  Maybe fries? We have an air fryer and make fries fairly often.  Maybe mashed, roasted, baked, or baked into something?  The possibilities are endless and I'm happy that I still have some left to do a little more experimenting!  I'm regretting not getting a second bag while I was there and I don't really want to make a special trip to the store.  We are avoiding going to the store unless absolutely necessary, anyone else in the same boat?

I wasn't sure what I want to make so I did a little research and found a purple sweet potato muffin recipe.  The only problem was that it didn't have the vibrant purple color that I was looking for.  I decided to use the recipe as a base, but I made quite a few changes.  So these muffins ended up being an experiment where I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best!

I'll admit when I tried one right out of the oven, I wasn't that impressed.  They seemed like they were too moist, almost to the point of being mushy.  BUT if you let them cool, they are chewy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside.  DELICIOUS!  The muffins keep well in the fridge and you can eat them cold like I have been or heat them for 15-30 seconds in the microwave.  I find that most of my muffins and breads freeze well so I froze half of the muffins for later.  This comes in handy for when I want a quick treat but also helps with portion control.  Otherwise I'd probably eat them all!

The original recipe called for milk, which you could use, but I wanted to make sure the muffins were as purple as they could be so I used the boiling liquid from the sweet potatoes.  I figured the liquid would have extra nutrients, plus it was too pretty to waste!  I made my puree the day before so the muffins would be simple to put together when I wanted them.  You don't have to do this but I would recommend making sure the potatoes and boiling liquid are cool before you add them to the muffin batter.

Let me know what you think about these if you make them.  I will for sure make these again, even if it's with regular sweet potatoes.  They are that good!

Sweet Potato Muffins
Adapted from Thyme & Love

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup reserved sweet potato boiling liquid (you can use milk if you want, but I didn't miss it in the muffins and it would probably make the muffins less vibrant)
• 2 Tbsp. pure maple syrup
• 1/4 tsp. Ube extract or 1 tsp. vanilla extract (I used Ube extract which helped to enhance the purple color, this is totally optional)
• 1 cup purple sweet potato puree, from one large or two medium sweet potatoes (see the directions on how to make this)

Directions for purple sweet potato puree:

1. Peel and chop your sweet potato into medium sized pieces.  Place in a medium sauce pan and add enough water to barely cover.  Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce to a simmer.  Cook the potatoes until they are fork tender, about 15-20 minutes.
2. While the potatoes are still warm, scoop them out of the sauce pan, reserving the boiling liquid, and add them to a large bowl and either mash or rice them.  I used a ricer, but if you want them extra smooth you could process them in a food processor.  If your potatoes seem too dry, add some of your boiling liquid.  Set aside to cool.

Directions for the muffins:

1. Preheat oven to 400℉ and grease a 12 cup muffin pan with cooking spray.
2. In a medium sized bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
3. In another medium sized bowl, whisk together vegetable oil, reserved boiling liquid, maple syrup, Ube or vanilla extract, and sweet potato puree.  Gradually add in the dry ingredients, I added half then mixed and added the remaining dry ingredients.  Do no over mix your batter, just mix to combine.
4. Scoop the batter into your prepared muffin pan, filling about 2/3 full.  I like to use a cookie scoop to ensure that my muffins are fairly even.  I used a #50 scoop and each muffin had two scoops of batter.
5. Bake for 15 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out clean.  Transfer to a cooling rack.

Enjoy!