Sweet Potato Muffins with Candied Ginger

I can't stop making these muffins, so it's a good thing people keep eating them. Every time I make a batch, they're gone within 48 hours. When someone tells me that a healthy food tastes like candy, it usually smacks of a parent trying to get a child to eat their vegetables, but I'm going ahead and taking that risk: The sweet potatoes we've been bringing home from Genesis Farm have a rich, mapley flavor, and they're the sweetest sweet potatoes I've ever eaten. I've been meaning to ask them what variety they grow. So they certainly help the recipe, but these little morsels are moist and sweet and a little bit spicy no matter what orange vegetable you use.

Sweet Potato Muffins with Candied Ginger

1/2 cup chopped candied ginger
1/4 cup butter, melted, or vegetable oil (I use oil)
1/3 cup unsulfured molasses
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup mashed sweet potato
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 3/4 cups flour (I use up to 3/4 cup whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375˚. Oil or spray muffin tins. Mix the ginger and wet ingredients in a bowl until smooth; mix the dry ingredients in a second bowl. Combine the two, mixing gently until well blended. Spoon the batter into the muffin tins and bake on the middle rack until lightly browned, about 25 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins.

Tip: If you don't feel like buying an entire quart of buttermilk, you can mix 1/4 cup plain or vanilla yogurt with 1/4 cup milk. In a pinch, you could even substitute clabbered milk, which is 1/2 cup milk mixed with 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice and allowed to sit for 10 minutes.

From Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison, with a few tweaks by yours truly