My baby is quickly turning into a toddler. She’s a toddler who loves to eat and I’m thankful she’s not picky yet. To try to keep up with her appetite and nutritional needs, I’m trying to give her more healthy “big kid” food and not rely on purees as much. She’s become a lot better at picking food up, putting it in her mouth and chewing it. Adults don’t really think about how eating involves all those skills that babies have to learn.
If you don’t have a toddler to feed, you can certainly still make these muffins. The recipe is very easily adjustable and they make a great healthy snack. You can easily make them more sweet by adding sugar or chocolate chips. If you don’t have mashed sweet potato readily available, canned pumpkin totally works.
Sweet potato oat muffins
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup rolled oats
1 tbsp agave syrup*
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
1 cup mashed sweet potato
1/2 cup melted butter
Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Lightly beat wet ingredients separately in a large bowl. Add about 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the wet at a time, beating with a wooden spoon or with an electric mixer on low.
The dough will be sticky and stretchy. It won’t be very wet. Using a cookie scoop, fill mini muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes.
An easy way to “make” mashed sweet potato is to just buy Trader Joe’s mashed sweet potato from the frozen section. It may be a seasonal thing. I’m not sure.
Notes: I used a mini muffin pan. This recipe will totally work with a regular muffin pan but the bake time may be longer.
Adjust the sugar to your needs and preference. If you’re making this for a small child and you want to completely leave out sugar, go for it. Or you may want to do that for yourself. This would be good with maple syrup in place of the agave. Or you may want to use 1/2 cup of cane sugar. Just don’t use honey of you’re planning on serving to a baby under 12 months old because of the risk of botulism.
Add 1/2 tsp salt if you would like. I left it out to make it baby-friendly.
I’m going to try freezing this and defrosting a few at a time. It should last several weeks that way. I’ll update this later to tell you how that goes.
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