Sweet Potato Cornbread muffins

One of my favorite restaurants here in Kansas City is Peachtree Soul Food Buffet.  They have some of the best southern comfort food selections in the city.  One of those comfort foods they offer are Sweet Potato Cornbread muffins.  Holy moly are these things good.  I am one of those weird people that only likes Jiffy cornbread mix.  I have yet to have some homemade cornbread that I loved until I had one of their muffins.  Their muffins are sweeter than Jiffy mix, but they kind of have a similar consistency...although they must put 4 tablespoons of butter in their batter and I love it.  Seriously, if you ever come to Kansas City, you have to try some of these muffins along with some greens, fried chicken and fried fish.  Smack yo mama good.

I tried another sweet potato cornbread recipe using ground whole grain corn meal. It turned out wayyyy to grainy for my taste.  I basically want my favorite Jiffy Mix cornbread with sweet potato in it and hope it turns out like Peachtree’s muffins.

Recently I had been looking for a homemade "Jiffy" cornbread mix recipe.  I came across this one that looked pretty promising:  http://www.food.com/recipe/jiffy-corn-muffin-mix-copycat-345502

I read through the comments and saw the recipe can be a little dry.  I thought adding another egg and a little plain greek yogurt should remedy that.   

I modified the recipe a bit and added some ingredients for the sweet potato muffins.  All in all these muffins turned out light and fluffy and quite similar to Jiffy mix with a nice balance of sweet potato.  I highly recommend that you try this out.  Here's the recipe:

Sweet Potato Cornbread Muffins

INGREDIENTS

YIELD6 muffinsUNITSUS

Corn Muffin Mix

2⁄3 cup all-purpose flour

1⁄2 cup yellow cornmeal

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1⁄4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons plain greek yogurt

To make muffins add

2 eggs

1⁄3 - ½  cup milk

Optional Ingredients

1⁄2 cup grated cheddar cheese(optional)

2 ounces canned chilies (optional)

1⁄4 cup drained chopped pimiento(optional)

1⁄2 cup chopped onion (optional)

For sweet potato cornbread

• ½-1 cup mashed sweet potato
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp vanilla
• 2 dashes of nutmeg

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Combine first 5 ingredients in a bowl, mix well.
3. Whisk in vegetable oil and mix until dry mixture is smooth and lumps are gone.
4. To make Corn Muffins, spray muffin pan with non-stick cooking spray.
5. Combine mix with egg, yogurt and ⅓ cup of milk, mixing well. If mixture is still dry, add more milk.
6. To make Sweet Potato Corn muffins, add mashed sweet potato,  brown sugar (optional), cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla.
7. Fill muffin pan cups 1/2 full, bake for 15-20 minutes.  My crappy oven took a while longer. The edges of the muffins will turn a nice golden brown and you can smell the wonderful waft of the muffins in the kitchen.
8. 
   

Mini Apple Crisp pies

Mini Apple Crisp pies

Ingredients:

1 pie crust (pre-made)

1 c brown sugar

1/2 c flour

1/2 stick butter

2 fresh diced up apples  (I like mine chunky)

3  tbsp white sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

pinch of nutmeg

1/8 tsp vanilla

Optional 1/2 c chopped pecans (add to topping)

Tools:

non-stick muffin/cupcake pan

4 -inch diameter cup

1 large bowl

large spoons

Directions

• Preheat oven to 425.
• Unroll the pie crust (if store bought).  Use a cup to cut out pie crust.  Put a cut-out crust in muffin tin (needs no crimping).
• In bowl, combine brown sugar, dash of cinnamon and flour well.  Mix in melted butter and set to the side.  
• Microwave fresh cut apples for 5 minutes to soften apples.   Remove from microwave.  Add sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and mix well.   
• OR In pan over medium heat, melt 1 tblsp butter.
• Add apples, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg. Coat apples well and simmer about 4-5 minutes.
• Spoon apple mixture into crusts just to the top of tin.

• Spoon the crumb topping on top of each pie generously.  Put in oven for 15 minutes.
• Take out of oven and let cool for 5 minutes.  Run a knife around the top of the pie to loosen and it should just pop out.

Makes 6 mini pies.  You can wrap them up and put them in freezer for up to 4 months.

Saw this on Teen Kids News on April 18, 2015 in the episode discussing E-cigarettes; Wikipedia; test stress; baseball's 7th inning stretch; bottled water; using a toothbrush; baking tiny pies.

https://archive.org/details/KRON_20150418_213000_Teen_Kids_News#start/1380/end/1440

Elizabeth Jeans Apple Pie Crisp kit