Pineapple & Sweet Potato Muffins #MuffinMonday

These sweet muffins are packed with fruit--pineapple--and vegetable--sweet potato which add depth and character to a tender breakfast treat. Topped with maple sugar for crunch, this muffin is an all around satisfying snack.

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Welcome to Muffin Monday! I've been having so much fun baking muffins for the Detachment that I'm bringing a new one for you this month--a sweet potato muffin with pineapple in the batter.

The inspiration for this muffin came from the growers of these Stokes purple sweet potatoes--Frieda's. My first exposure to purple sweet potatoes came via the Mile Creek Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. I had so much fun combining orange and purple sweet potatoes in my Overnight Sweet Potato Monkey Bread and playing with the vivid colors to make my Mardi Gras Braided Bread that I searched all over my new city until I located some purple sweet potatoes at my local natural foods coop.

Sweet Potato Braided Bread for #EasterWeek

A sweet breakfast or brunch treat made with roasted sweet potatoes, this braided bread is an impressive addition to your holiday table.

Welcome to day 6 of #EasterWeek hosted by Bernadette from Rants From My Crazy Kitchen!

This week we are celebrating Easter and Bernadette’s blogging anniversary with all kinds of delicious recipes and a giveaway! From appetizers to ham recipes, we have everything you need for a great Easter dinner or brunch, and one lucky winner will receive a $200 Amazon gift card.  Scroll down for more details!

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It's good to have a skill in your kitchen repertoire that can be manifested in a variety of ways throughout the year. This recipe is an excellent example of that. The technique of braided 3 strands of bread dough is a simple one to master, and once you've got it down you can turn out an infinite array of breads for nearly any occasion. [As I type this, my brain is thinking towards savory routes.] I learned how to braid bread while living in Finland where I made a cardamom-spiced version called Pulla  [poo-lah] (you can find my Finnish Pulla recipe here).

Sometimes I get creative before I start braiding the dough. I've flattened and spread ropes of dough with caramel pumpkin butter before braiding to make a Caramel Pumpkin Butter Stuffed Braided Bread.
I've gotten creative using Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share vegetables to naturally color the dough for a tricolor Mardi Gras Bread using purple sweet potatoes, orange sweet potatoes, plus matcha green tea powder to make the traditional colors in sweet bread form.

The basis of this bread is a sweetened, enriched dough. My sweet potato bread dough recipe was inspired by the Overnight Sweet Potato Monkey Bread in Donna Currie's book Make Ahead Bread. When you make dough using vegetables the moisture content varies widely depending on the age of the vegetable and the amount of rainfall during the growing season, so it's important to be familiar with how an enriched dough should act/feel/look like. If you've never baked bread I would not recommend diving into this recipe. I'd suggest you start with the Pulla to get the hang of it, then branch out to incorporating roasted sweet potatoes into your dough.

For this recipe I wanted to expand on the sweet potato dough concept with complementary flavors. I chose pecans and brown sugar because that's my favorite way to eat sweet potatoes. I've made this bread several times, with several variations. I've got a bunch of notes, so do be sure to read through before embarking on your baking session(s). You can be as elaborate as you want, using 3 types of dough to make 6 loaves of multicolored purple/orange/brown bread. You could simply make a single batch of orange sweet potato dough and make two loaves of bread. Add in pecans or leave them out as you prefer. Sprinkle on maple sugar or use turbinado sugar as you prefer.  This recipe is pretty forgiving, and the dough can be stored in the fridge for several days or frozen for several months.

Purple Sweet Potato Muffins with Caramel and Streusel #MuffinMonday

These candy-sweet muffins start with vibrantly-hued purple sweet potatoes coloring a sturdy oatmeal base. With caramel chips inside, and streusel on top, this is a sweet treat that's pretty to eat.

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One of the perennially fun aspects of being a part of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share is the ever-revolving door to new produce. Each year I discover new varieties of vegetables and fruits, new favorites, new 'must-haves', and yes, new . . . . 'what is this and what do I do with it?' items.

When you get a new color of an old favorite, like sweet potatoes, you can just have fun. No need to invent uses for an unfamiliar vegetable. Instead, I can play with colors--like I did with my Purple and Orange Overnight Sweet Potato Pecan Monkey Bread or my purple, green, and golden Mardi Gras Braided Bread.

For this month's Muffin Monday recipe I got creative with some purple sweet potatoes from the farm share. I wanted a wholesome base, so I started by soaking rolled oats in vanilla yogurt similar to my standard overnight oat muffin recipe (my 4th post ever!). I wanted a decadent muffin so I used some softened butter in the batter. I wanted something that could be deliciously sweet for a morning coffee, so I tossed in some caramel chips to the batter. Finally, I wanted something that reminded me a bit of sweet potato casserole, so I topped the muffins with streusel topping.

If you get colorful veggies and want to play around with them--guess what? Your freezer is your friend. In addition to being long-storing like onions and white potatoes, cooked sweet potatoes also freeze well. Once thawed, you can use them in a myriad of ways to add moisture, color, and flavor to baked goods.