Gluten-Free Sweet Potato Muffins (Dairy-Free)

These moist, cinnamon spiced gluten-free sweet potato muffins are dairy-free, fluffy and have no cane sugar. Sweetened with maple syrup or agave they are perfect for a winter holiday breakfast. I topped them with my icing without powdered sugar – yes you read that right! That pretty icing has no powdered sugar (see link below).

Be sure to check out my other gluten-free muffin recipes including my Zucchini, Carrot Apple Muffins, Gluten-Free Blueberry Muffins or my Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Banana Muffins with cinnamon crumb topping.

Gluten-Free Flours

I have used several different gluten-free flour blends for this recipe and they all worked well. My custom blend of sorghum, millet and brown rice flours with potato and tapioca starches is my favorite. It has better flavor than your average rice flour blend and creates a better texture. I find that the store bought blends are more starchy and create a slightly elastic texture in cakes and muffins.

This is the recipe for my special flour blend that I love for this recipe and many more of my gluten-free recipes:

• 1 c sweet white sorghum flour
• ½ c millet flour
• ½ c brown rice flour
• ⅔ c potato starch
• ⅓ c tapioca starch

See the notes in the recipe for a super simple DIY gluten-free flour blend or my blog post on gluten-free flour blends.

If you prefer a store bought blend, I highly recommend King Arthur Flour All Purpose Gluten-Free flour (gluten-free certified). This is their blend that does not contain xanthan gum. Omit the xanthan gum from the recipe of your flour blend contains it or other binders like inulin and guar gum.

Muffin Ingredients

Sweet potato puree is available in cans like pumpkin puree at some markets. It’s usually found with the pumpkin puree and mostly available in the fall. But you can order sweet potato puree online if you can’t find it in the market.

Otherwise, you’ll need to bake a yam/sweet potato. My preference is for garnet or jewel yams. A medium-large sized yam (about 10-12 ounces) will give you the right amount. You can even bake it in the toaster oven if you have one with temperature controls. Bake the sweet potato on a sheet pan (to prevent drips on the oven) at 400F for about one hour or until very soft in the middle.

If you are baking your own potato, you will need to puree it in the blender, food processor or with an immersion blender to assure that it is completely smooth. The immersion blender is my favorite way to do it because I can do it right in the mixing bowl which means no extra dishes to wash. Puree it with the oil and sweetener for best results.

These muffins have no white sugar. Agave or maple syrup make them moist and perfectly sweet.

Tools

My absolute favorite tool for cupcake and muffin making is this Wilton Perfect Fill Batter Tip. It’s a tip that fits into a piping bag and allows you to fill paper liners with out the messy drips and glops of batter all over the pan. It has a silicone tip that opens and closes with pressure on the piping bag. I NEVER make muffins without it. Unless of course there are blueberries or something that would clog it up – it must be a smooth batter like this muffin batter.

My other favorite muffin makin and baking item is 4-cup measuring cup. This allows me to measure and mix all the wet ingredients together in the measuring cup without using an extra bowl. If you hate doing dishes as much as I do, this is a great tool.

Optional Additions and Toppings

These muffins are amazing on their own but sweet potato and cinnamon go well with so many different flavors. Here are a few fun additions toppings and to these gluten-free muffins:

• Try my icing without powdered sugar which uses coconut cream as the base.
• Drizzle with plain white icing or orange icing. Mix 1/4 c powdered sugar with 1 1/2 tsp water, milk or orange juice.
• Top with my Sweet and Spicy Candied Pecans
• Add the zest of one orange. Need a quick tutorial on zest? Check out my post on How to Zest a Lemon. Stir the zest into the liquid ingredients.
• Stir 2/3 c chopped walnuts or pecans into the batter
• Pineapple-place 1 cup canned crushed pineapple in a strainer and drain well. Press down on the pineapple to squeeze out the liquid. Stir into the liquid ingredients.
• Add 3/4 cup shredded apple – stir into the liquid ingredients
• Add 2 tsps freshly grated ginger. Grate the ginger on a microplane for a super fine shred that will incorporate and flavor the muffins nicely.
• For a little kick, omit the vanilla and add 1 Tbsp rum.