Want a sweet treat that packs in goodness at the same time. These Spiced Sweet Potato Muffins are chock full of fibre, vitamins A, C and bucket loads of protein – a bit like a meal rather than a snack. Omit the sweet icing and they would make a great “on the go” breakfast or pre or post workout snack. Sweet potato is fast becoming the new superfood and lends itself to both hot and cold recipes like my Sweet Potato, Kale and Coconut Soup.
This recipe is a bit of an adaptation from Gwenyth Paltrow’s Five-Spice Sweet Potato Muffins featured on the I Quit Sugar recipe site. I loved the idea of sweet potato and five spice but I’m not a big fan of gluten free flours. They tend to be unreliable when cooking with, and it tends to dry out very quickly. Not to mention that GF Flours are just not the healthiest option IMO. Then there is always almond meal but it’s not the best fit for my daughter or myself for that matter and after reading this article I was convinced that it wasn’t the best choice for us.  I much prefer to use coconut flour as the go-to flour. It takes a bit of thinking to switch up a recipe to incorporate coconut flour but as long as you remember that coconut flour absorbs up to 9 times it’s amount in liquid than you can alter any recipe usually to include coconut flour.
A side note on fibre and gut related issues – A high fibre diet is not recommended for people with gut related problems, however fibre is needed in order for the bowel motions to move correctly and therefore absorb toxins that would otherwise sit in the digestive tract and intestines. We only need a small amount of fibre per day for that to happen, as long as it fibres from fruit, vegetables, and some grains. More on this later.
These muffins are low in fructose so they are suitable for those with fructose malabsorption and fodmap diets. The sweet potato can be roasted or mashed to use in this recipe, however IMO roasting brings out the flavour so much more and you won’t wash out any of it’s goodness, but it’s not essential.
Spiced Sweet Potato Muffins with Orange Buttercream Frosting
A delicious full flavoured muffin. Serve with or without the icing or try a dollop of yogurt or fresh butter.
- 200 grams Sweet Potato (oven roasted or mashed)
- 6 eggs lightly whisked
- 1/2 cup coconut flour
- 1/2 cup linseed meal or LSA
- 1/3 cup rice malt syrup
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 1/2 tablespoons five spice
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 125 gr coconut oil or butter melted
- Filtered water
- To roast the sweet potato
- Turn oven to 200° C / 400° F
- Prick sweet potato a few times with skewer or fork and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
- Roast for up to 1 hour – check after 40 minutes.
- Remove potato from oven and let cool.
- Reduce oven temperature to 190° C / 375° F
- Line a 12 hole muffin pan with cupcake papers or grease.
- In a bowl combine coconut flour, linseed meal, baking powder, sea salt and spices and mix well.
- In another bowl combine eggs, cooled and measured sweet potato and melted coconut oil/butter.
- Add wet ingredients to dry ones and mix to a batter.
- If batter to thick then add some filtered water until mixture is to the consistency that you want.
- Spoon 1/4 cup measures into muffin pan.
- Cook muffins for 20 minutes
- Frost muffins once they have cooled.
The muffin batter is quite dense but once cooked they have a delicious cake like texture.
If you are not following a low fructose or fodmap diet than you could replace the rice malt syrup with honey or regular sugar.
If you don’t want to roast the sweet potato then boiling or steaming and mashing is fine as well.
Orange Buttercream Frosting
A delightful creamy, tangy frosting that goes so well with the flavours of sweet potato and five spice muffins.
- 2 cups powdered Dextrose
- Zest of 1 orange
- Juice of 1 orange
- 250 grams of Butter softened
- In a mixer or use a bowl with hand held beaters place the softened butter and dextrose.
- You can add a teaspoon of boiling water if it’s too hard to beat.
- Beat dextrose and butter until soft and creamy.
- Add the orange zest and beat again.
- Add the orange juice teaspoonful at a time until the desired flavour.
- Load up an icing bag with the frosting and pipe onto cooled muffins.
Dextrose powder is known as glucose powder. Glucose powder is what’s left from the sugar after you take out the fructose. It’s suitable in small quantities for people with fructose malabsorption. You can buy it in any good health food shop or in the Home Brewing section of your supermarket.
If you are not following low fructose or fodmaps diet than you could replace the dextrose powder with regular icing sugar.
Will you try these as a weekend treat? Let me know if you do and if you enjoyed them, or not?
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