Paleo Tahini Sweet Potato Muffins

Apparently I missed National Muffin Day a couple of weeks ago so I’m a bit late to the party on this one, but these babies were worth the wait. I’ve been playing around with tahini in my baking recently and I absolutely love the way it acts as a butter and oil replacement in pastries like cookies and quick breads. It works like a dream in these sweet potato muffins! I wanted them to feel like an indulgence without being overly sweet, and I think the tahini was the key to making that happen. It keeps them tender and moist (yeah I know, but it really is the best word for this), lends a rich mouthfeel, and provides just enough of that savory sesame flavor to balance the maple syrup and dates. Plus it plays beautifully with the allspice. Since it’s a prominent flavor in these muffins I recommend using the best quality tahini you can get – my preferred brand is Soom. FYI this is not an ad, I just adore their products.

Anyway, these muffins are pretty generous in size, weighing in at a touch over 4 ounces each. They’re perfect for breakfast on the go, and a fabulous accompaniment to your afternoon coffee or tea. You can bake them in a standard muffin tin with or without liners (if you’re not using liners, grease the wells and dust with a little cassava flour). Feel like getting fancy? Bake them in tulip cups like I did. I love using the tulip liners when I give muffins as gifts, they just feel a little more special.

You’ve probably made muffins before so I won’t walk you through this recipe, it’s basically as simple as measure, mix, and bake. Just a couple of things to clarify: I use sweet potato that I’ve cooked and mashed/pureed myself. I’m really not familiar with canned sweet potato, but as far as I know it’s typically packed in a sweet syrup, which you don’t want to use here, because the muffins will be too sweet. There’s no need to take the time to bake the sweet potato – microwaved or steamed is fine – but if you don’t have any on hand and there’s a can of pumpkin puree languishing in your pantry, you may substitute that instead. HOWEVER, canned pumpkin puree is thinner and wetter than freshly cooked sweet potato, so I recommend cooking down 2 cups of the pumpkin puree on the stove until it reduces to 1 ½ cups.

Second and final note: I’ve developed this recipe to work with the specific flours listed. There will inevitably be questions about substitutions, and all I can say is that you’re always best substituting by weight instead of volume – so measure your dry ingredients on a scale instead of in cups – and you will likely have to make adjustments to the amount of dairy-free milk you add if you start messing with the flours. Using more cassava and less almond? Add a bit more milk. Using less cassava and more almond? Use a bit less milk. Adding/substituting coconut flour? You’ll definitely need more milk because coconut soaks up liquid like a sponge. The only straight swap would be tapioca starch for an equal weight or volume of the arrowroot. Whatever your changes, the batter should be thick but spoonable, so if you scoop some up it will drip off the spoon at a moderate rate (i.e. it’s not runny, but you shouldn’t have to scrape it off).

Make sense? Great, now go bake some muffins!