Sweet Potato Chickpea Muffins

These are the perfect muffins for when you want something sweet, but no subsequent blood sugar rollercoaster. They're wildly healthy, with no refined sugar or flour, and use heart-healthy olive oil for moisture.

No sugar, no flour, chickpeas and olive oil!? In a muffin? Sounds like a recipe to avoid, right? Yet somehow these ingredients come together as a delightful little muffin. You gotta make them to believe it!

The true star of these muffins is chickpea flour, which smells beany during preparation, but a magical transformation occurs during baking, leaving no trace of beaniness behind. Most of the sweetness and moisture comes from roasted sweet potato, with just a hint of maple syrup to top it off. With warming spices, these pair perfectly with a cup of coffee or tea, and are truly a guilt-free treat.

Ingredients:

• 2.5 cups roasted sweet potato

• 3/4 cup maple syrup

• 1/2 cup olive oil

• 2.5 Tbsp vanilla

• 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

• 5 cups chickpea flour

• 1 Tbsp baking soda

• 1 tsp salt

• 3 Tbsp cinnamon

• 1.5 Tbsp ground ginger

*makes 24 mini muffins, or ~16 large

Directions:

Roast the sweet potatoes. This recipe uses about 3 large sweet potatoes. I roast mine very simply, just stabbing a couple of holes in the potatoes, then popping them in a dish in the oven at 350 for an hour. After cooling, the sweet potatoes will come out of their peels easily, and you’ll have soft mashable deliciousness without much effort. The potatoes can be roasted several days ahead for convenience.

Once you have the sweet potatoes roasted, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Mash roasted potatoes with a fork until smooth. Measure out 2.5 cups of the potato mash, and combine with the maple syrup, olive oil, vanilla, and balsamic vinegar in a large bowl. 

In a separate bowl whisk together the dry ingredients: chickpea flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger. Then pour the dry ingredients into the wet, and stir together with a spatula until just combined. Scoop into greased muffin tins. Bake 25 mins for large muffins and 20 mins for mini-muffins.

Note:

Raw chickpea flours tastes gross so undercooking will absolutely ruin the taste of these muffins. I recommend doing the knife test to ensure your muffins are cooked through, and then tasting a small bite right away to be 110% sure that they're done. If there's a super bitter aftertaste, throw them back in for a few more minutes - that goes away when they're fully cooked.