Photographer: Lindsay Hunt
Photographer: Lindsay Hunt
By Lindsay Hunt
Since the beginning of Spring, in an effort to get in shape for summer, I’ve changed my morning routine from slow and luxurious to a fast-paced schedule of gym, shower, and go to work.
I’m always confused when choosing what to eat before I exercise. Should it be a filling breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast or should I choose that banana and yogurt smoothie? I should choose neither, it turns out! I don’t want to be hungry when I exercise, but a full stomach makes for an uncomfortable workout.
For me, the best breakfast to eat before heading to the gym is a Whole-Wheat Sweet Potato Coconut Muffin. Rich with vitamins, fiber, and complex carbohydrates, sweet potato puree is a great option for making moist whole-wheat muffins and, although densely packed with healthy ingredients, the muffin isn’t too big.
Not only is a small, healthy, and nutritious breakfast important before exercising, it has to be quick and easy to make. Although the recipe takes a little planning and time at the beginning of the week, all you need to do is warm a muffin in the toaster or microwave and head out the door.
So if you’re short on time in the morning, make a batch of these muffins on Sunday and heat one each morning. After the first batch mix it up with grated apple or nuts for the coconut and tweak the puree as you want. Great options include mashed banana or pumpkin puree.
Never workout hungry again!
Whole-Wheat Sweet Potato Coconut Muffins Recipe
Adapted from Mark Bittman’s Minimalist recipe
Makes 12 muffins
½ cup melted unsalted butter, more for greasing tins
2½ cups whole-wheat flour, preferably pastry flour
¾ cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup mashed or pureed sweet potato
½ cup dried, unsweetened coconut
1 egg, beaten
½ cup non-fat Greek yogurt
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and grease a 12-cup muffin tin. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. In another bowl, whisk together the melted butter, sweet potato, coconut, egg, and greek yogurt. Fold wet mixture into dry mixture until just combined.
2. Fill muffin tins; bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, or until muffins are puffed and turning golden brown on top. Serve warm.
Muffins will keep in a covered container for up to 2 days.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Is it coconut milk, oil, meat, chunks? Please specify.
Thanks,
These sound delicious and I’d love to give them a try. Is it really 1/2 teaspoon of coconut? That doesn’t sound right, could you mean 1/2 cup?
Hi Jenny K,
That is meant to say cinnamon. Sorry about that! The 1/2 cup coconut is later in the ingredients list.
Thanks!
Lindsay
What a wholesome sounding muffin. You could also use coconut oil to replace the butter.
This sounds fabulous, I will have to try w/out flour as I have gluten allergies. Will try with cornmeal or cassava and see how they turn out.
I have these currently baking in my oven, and they smell delicious.
However, I have to say, Marcus…as someone who takes her professionalism pretty seriously, I was astounded that you let that recipe be posted on your blog with the egregious errors in it. Sugar is *not* a dry ingredient, especially in muffins. And your ingredient list says “Greek yogurt”, but doesn’t mention it in the instructions. Instead, a mention of buttermilk is made, when there is clearly no buttermilk in the ingredients list.
Like many people, I have been baking for years, so I edited what I needed to as I went along. However, there are plenty of people who are new to the culinary arts who look to professionals to help them along. This recipe as written, in the hands of a novice baker, would be a disaster.
Sounds so good! I’m confused about the second bowl, where we whisk together the melted butter, sweet potato, coconut, egg, and buttermilk. I don’t see buttermilk in the ingredient list–so I’m guessing that’s the Greek yogurt? Let’s say we wanted to do buttermilk instead–is it the same half cup?
Never mind my question–I looked at Bittman’s original recipe and see that buttermilk is the same half cup. Thanks!
Made these this morning and want to clarify the amount of flour. 2.5 cups is a LOT of flour for 12 muffins. It was more like bread dough so I baked it in a bread pan. The flavor was really good, but was super dense and doughy – never really set properly. Is it possible that the flour amount was incorrect?
Super excited to try again!
The ingredients list calls for Greek yoghurt, but the directions refer to buttermilk. I’m hoping the former is correct, because I’ve already started making these muffins and have none of the latter.
Also, I love the idea of being able to warm up one of these in the morning, but it isn’t so helpful if they’ll only keep for two days! Oh, well, suppose I can eat them stale.
I love the combination of sweet potatoes and coconut – can’t wait to give these a try!!
That is a LOT of flour and my batter was very dry, but that was perhaps because I used a whole sweet potato, nuked it, and mashed it rather than using actual puree. I added about 1/2 cup of almond milk to make the batter more muffin-like. I also used canola oil instead of butter, although walnut oil would also have been excellent, especially with walnuts substituting for coconut. I hate coconut, so used pecans. Oh, and I put in 1/2 bag of dark chocolate chips. Otherwise, it was exactly the same recipe, lol!
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