Thursday, November 13, 2014

Banana-maple muffins with potato and spelt flour

After making potato-based fudge for Vegan MoFo, I knew I wanted to progress to try mashed potato in baked goods too. I decided on muffins, and to add to the fun, muffins without oil or processed sugar. These make use of almond butter and maple syrup, with extra sweetness coming from the banana and some raisins.

As the pictures below show, my muffins have a collapsed look about them. This is entirely my fault. Having made the recipe up, I estimated 15 minutes cooking time but didn't take into account the different consistency that potato gives over flour. The muffins weren't anywhere near cooked at 15 minutes, and opening the oven door interrupted their rising process.


If we overlook the collapsed tops, these muffins came out nicely. I was impressed at the texture, which was similar to a regular muffin but a little moister and a little chewier. There is no discernible taste of potato, and instead the muffins hum of banana, maple syrup, almond butter and vanilla. They are sweet enough, but not too sweet. They are obviously and messily homemade, but I look forward to trying a repeat batch where I keep the oven door shut for the necessary amount of time. I expect that would give a far neater result!


Banana-maple muffins with potato and spelt flour
A twist on standard muffins that is vegan, oil free and refined sugar free
Makes 12 muffins

Author: Bite-Sized Thoughts


Ingredients:
1 large potato, weighing about 330g
1/4 cup almond butter
2 medium ripe bananas, roughly mashed
1 cup (250ml) non-dairy milk of choice
1 tbsp (15ml) vanilla
1/4 cup (62ml) maple syrup
1 cup (140g) spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup (70g) sultanas or raisins

Method:
Ahead of time, peel and chop the potato and add to a saucepan of boiling water. Simmer until soft, approximately 30 minutes. Allow the potato to cool slightly before preparing the muffins.

When the potato has cooked and cooled, preheat your oven to 160'C (320'F) and prepare a 12 pan muffin tray.

In a large bowl, beat together the cooked potato and almond butter using electric mixers (a blender or food processor would work too). The resulting mixture will be very thick. Add the mashed banana and non-dairy milk and beat to incorporate. Add the vanilla and maple syrup and beat to incorporate.

Stir the spelt flour and baking powder into the muffin mix, and then stir through the sultanas / raisins.

Transfer the mixture to your prepared muffin tray, and bake for approximately 30 minutes, until the muffins are golden and the tops bounce back when touched.


Potato in baking - is it something you have tried?

7 comments:

  1. Sounds like a great recipe - I think potato adds a softness to cake that I enjoy. I am surprised that your muffins sank because you opened the door - I always open the oven door to rotate my cakes midway because otherwise my oven bakes unevenly.

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    1. Interesting...perhaps they sunk for other reasons then! I was raised on the belief that opening the oven door mid-way through baking would cause products to sink, but perhaps that isn't as true as I thought. I wonder if fan forced / not fan forced makes a difference, or if your rotating manages to avoid the period of rising...mysteries :-)

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  2. I love that you posted these as is Kari. I'm a bit fan of home cooking and sometimes when it all looks perfect I get disheartened when mine don't look the same. These look rustic, delicious and perfectly moreish!

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    1. I'm definitely capable of making and sharing rustic :P

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  3. Even though the tops have sunk a little, I can imagine the texture of these muffins is wonderful as the potato would give a lovely moist and soft texture to the muffins. The banana and maple flavours would be so lovely. You're very clever how you manage to make up so many recipes xx

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    1. Sometimes the clever-ness doesn't quite stretch to neat products, but at least I have fun trying ;)

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  4. This reminds me of sweet potato muffins which are some of my favourite things :-)

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