Whole Wheat Sweet Potato Muffins

The other day I saw on Facebook that the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission is having a Bloggers Recipe Contest for the best sweet potato recipes!  My family loves sweet potatoes!  We eat them baked, grilled, fried, in pancakes...well, just about any way!  This morning I was wanting some muffins, so I came up with this yummy (and healthy) recipe for whole wheat sweet potato muffins.  They were a big hit, especially with my four year old son, who helped make them!

Sweet potatoes give them a healthy kick, a yummy sweet flavor, and pretty orange color!  I used half whole wheat flour and half unbleached all purpose flour.  Greek yogurt adds moisture and more protein.  And I used maple syrup instead of highly processed white sugar.  I think these turned out to be a great start to a day!  And definitely kid approved!

Whole Wheat Sweet Potato Muffins

1 cup cooked and mashed sweet potatoes

1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt

1/2 cup maple syrup

2 eggs

1/4 cup melted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup unbleached all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Topping:

2 tablespoons melted butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 375°.  In a large mixing bowl, mix together the sweet potatoes, yogurt, maple syrup, eggs, butter and vanilla.  In another mixing bowl mix together the flours, baking soda and cinnamon.  Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients.  Stir until just moistened.  Grease two muffin pans and fill each cup half full with batter.  In a small mixing bowl, mix topping ingredients together.  Sprinkle the topping onto each of the muffins.  Bake for 20 minutes.  Makes 24 muffins.

* I added this recipe to "Sweets for a Saturday" at the Sweet as Sugar Cookies Blog.  Check out all the great recipes at http://sweet-as-sugar-cookies.blogspot.com/2011/02/sweets-for-saturday-6.html!

* I added this recipe to "Seasonal Sundays" at the Real Sustenance Blog.  Lots more great seasonal recipes at http://realsustenance.com/seasonal-sunday-02-27-11/!