It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas.....
I've been absent of late from blogging. I had to take a time out towards the end of our busiest B&B season ever. Things got very hectic and on top of doing Bed & Breakfast 24/7, I also have the two little monsters to look after. So in the end, something had to give and alas I'm afraid it was my blog! Now that we have closed for the season and I had some time to recuperate, I delighted to be back experimenting, photographing, tasting, and blogging all my favourite recipes!
And this is a wonderful recipe to return with!! These muffins, though not intentional, and bursting with Christmas tastes and smells! And with December starting tomorrow, this recipe is a highly appropriate come-back!
Last night I put down too many baked sweet potatoes for the dinner. Here I was thinking one of the kids would finally fall in love with baked sweet potatoes, instead of eating mashed regular potatoes. To no surprise, there was no such luck, leaving me with two spare baked sweet potatoes.
I let them cool fully and put them in the refrigerator over night. I remembered last winter experimenting with butternut squash muffins, and they tasted great. Howerver I totally forgot to write down how I made them, so I thought, with these spare baked sweet potatoes, I should really try to recreate that recipe again, and this time record the ingredients.
The spices used in the recipe and wonderfully Moorish and the use of oil and maple syrup give the muffins a great moistness. My kids adore muffins, and these muffins are a great way of hiding sweet potatoes in their diet. They are going to be the perfect lunchbox snack.
Ingredients
Makes 12 muffins
- 225g plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp all spice
- 140g light brown sugar
- 75g raisins
- 175ml milk
- 30ml maple syrup
- 60ml olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 egg
- 150g of cooled baked sweet potato
- 2 tbsp of mixed seeds
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
- Line a muffin tray with muffin cases.
- Sieve the flour, baking powder, and spices into a large bowl.
- Add the brown sugar and raisins and stir to combine.
- In a jug, add the egg, mashed sweet potato, maple syrup, and milk and whisk thoroughly to combine.
- Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients from the jug.
- Stir until all is combined and a batter is formed.
- Divide the batter evenly into the 12 muffin case. Scatter each muffin with some mixed seeds.
- Bake in the oven for 25 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack.
- While the muffins are still hot, brush the tops of the muffins with some maple syrup. This with help make the tops sticky and crunchy and the maple syrup will also soak into the hot muffins.