Muffins!

Cupcakes without frosting. Or maybe cupcakes are muffin ‘wanna-bes’ just waiting to be stripped of their frosting cover {Which is why, maybe, lots of people lick off the frosting before eating the cupcake.} While cupcakes are ‘fussy’, Muffins always tend to feel comforting to me.

Whatever is right muffins are tasty little handy breafasts/snacks in a paper holder crying out to be cupped in the hand warm from the oven and savored slowly.

See, they even make me wax a little poetic!

    Sweet Potato-Pecan Muffins

I ran across a Muffin Mini-cookbook while cleaning out 30 Years of Country Living Magazine. {And no, I don’t know why I kept them…and yes, I know there are others out there …you know who you are!!} By cleaning out I mean tearing out all the recipes, paper clipping them by month and throwing out the rest of the magazine. There were 12 muffin recipes to choose from. This is the first of many. The mini cookbook is still on my counter which means I will make, probabaly, 11 more from it.

And if they are all as good as this one…. There was a hint of sweetness from the grated sweet potato and a nice little crunch from the chopped {and toasted} pecans. Beware CupCakes, these don’t need no stinkin’ frosting to be very very tasty!!

Ingredients:

    6 tablespoons butter, softened
    2/3 cup sugar
    1 large egg
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    1 3/4 cup unsifted all-purpose flour
    1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
    1/2 teaspoon salt
    2/3 cup milk
    1 sweet potato (about 1/2 pound), peeled and finely grated
    2/3 cup chopped pecans

1.Heat oven to 375’F.
2.Prepare muffin pan.
3.In large bowl, with electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla until blended.
4.In medium-size bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.
5.Add flour mix¬ture to butter mixture alternately with milk, beating just until combined.
6.Fold in sweet potato and pecans.
7.Using ice-cream scoop or large spoon, divide batter among greased muffin-pan cups.
8.Bake muffins 25 to 30 minutes or until centers spring back when lightly pressed with fingertip. Cool muffins in pan on wire rack 5 minutes.
9.Remove muffins from pan and serve warm.


Country Living October 1993

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