Next up on my series of baking and cooking articles is A Guy’s Take on Baking Sweet Potato Muffins – that was inspired by a recipe in the latest Better Homes and Gardens¨ magazine. As I’ve mentioned in my previous A Guy’s Take article, my skills as a baker aren’t the best. I admit that, but I have come to realize if I want to learn, I would have to just dive in.
For this challenge, I am blessed to have my wife helping me along and keep me from doing something stupid. God bless her and the fire extinguisher.
I think for a guy like me, gathering the ingredients is one of the most difficult aspects of baking. Mainly because I have no idea what most of them are. What would take one person twenty minutes to find, would take me an entire afternoon. Oh sure, one who has a few hours of baking under their belt would be able to guess what “sugar” to use, but with me, it doesn’t go that easy. For example, in the world of baking, I see there is Confectioners Sugar (Powdered Sugar), Coarse Sugar, Granulated Sugar, Bakers Sugar etc. Maybe in a later article, I will research them and attempt to explain what each of them are, but for now, I will rely on my wife to help me. So, if you’re like me, you will need to grab a helper and gather the ingredients for this Sweet Potato Muffins With Chocolate recipe.
Start by preheating the oven to 350F and then place your paper cup liners in their prospective cupcake molds. Some might choose against using these, but for clean-up purposes, we are going to use them. Next, measure the dry ingredients, combine in a bowl and set aside. In a different bowl, using a mixer, cream the butter with the sugars then add one egg at a time. Add the milk and vanilla, then the sweet potatoes and mix until smooth. Add dry ingredients a little at a time until fully mixed.
Fill each muffin cup approximately 3/4 full and bake for 5 minutes. After the 5 minutes, carefully take them out of the oven and add 1 piece of chocolate by pushing down half-way into the batter. At this point, I would highly recommend using an Ove Glove¨. We purchased one of these many, many years ago and decided that since we liked it so much, we’d purchase another one. It also works well with outdoor grilling! Ok, back to topic, return muffins to the oven and bake 12-14 minutes. Poke a few of the muffins with a toothpick, test to make sure the insides are moist, but not so much that they stick to the toothpick. This is a cool trick, I mentioned using a meat thermometer in my last article, but this makes a little more sense.
When done, they have a nice, sweet, spice flavor to them. You can also add chocolate icing, but most people would probably agree that they are sweet enough without it.
In the next “A Guy’s Take” article, I will try to make, “Exotic Spice Cookies with Ginger, Cardamom and Rose Water”, ha! just kidding, I will probably just make brownies.
– Kyle
