Sweet Potato & Apple Muffins

Here's a question: why work from the office, when you can work from home and take conference calls in leggings while mixing up a batch of fall-tastic muffins? The answer is obvious. In other news, I've been spending a lot of time reading my new nutritious cookbook and Dan Barber's anecdotes about organic, sustainable farming. This has me googling permacultural farm tours and putting things like goji berries on my grocery list. I'm pretty jazzed about it all!

I've also been reading about the opportunities to substitute ingredients in our everyday cooking that jack up the nutrition content of what we're making. In the case of these muffins, swapping whole wheat flour for whole wheat spelt flour. The end result is a tender, (almost identical to the original) protein and fiber packed muffin. Spelt also contains significant amounts of iron, copper, magnesium...the list goes on. Plus, it's everything you want in a muffin: moist from the apple and sweet potato, spicy from the cinnamon and ginger, crunchy from walnuts and sweet from raisins. At least I felt less bad about cleaning the batter off of the bowl with my finger.

The original recipe I adopted was The Kitchn's Morning Glory Sweet Potato Muffins. 

Sweet Potato & Apple Muffins

Makes 12-15 muffins

1/2 cup raisins

1/3 cup apple juice

1 medium sweet potato, about 6 ounces (I didn't peel mine because there are so many nutrients in the skin if you buy organic!)

1 medium tart apple, 1/4" diced (I used Fuji)

2 cups whole-wheat spelt flour

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda (I used 6 teaspoons baking powder and worked fine)

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon fine salt

3 large eggs, beaten

3/4 cup canola or vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup unsweetened, shredded coconut

1/4 cup rolled oats, for topping (optional)

Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat to 375°F. Grease or line a 12-well muffin tin with paper liners.

Place the raisins and juice in a small microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high power for 30 seconds. Remove from the microwave and set aside.

Grate the sweet potato using the largest holes on a box grater. Transfer to a bowl with the apple and set aside.

Whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and salt together in a large bowl. Add the eggs, oil, vanilla, and raisins and juice, and stir until just combined. Fold in the sweet potato, apple, walnuts, and coconut.

Spoon the batter into the muffin pan, filling each just about to the top of the pan. Sprinkle the oats over the batter, if using.

Bake until lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool in the pan until cool enough to handle, 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the muffins to a cooling rack and cool completely.