Purple Power Blueberry Muffins

These muffins are a delicious way to add antioxidants into your families diet.   Purple Sweet Potatoes and blueberries are the secret ingredients in this recipe.  They are some of the highest antioxidant foods.   I love the idea of making food for my family that is both attractive and wholesome.  We are inundated in the candy and junk food aisles with bright colors and fakey sort of beauty, that is attractive to us when we are young.   Unfortunately, we often create a disdain in ourselves and our children for the natural beauty of color in the "real food" realm.  When I was young, I hated beets… their bright red color did not attract me, instead, I though "eeww beets" when ever I saw that bright red.  I think because I had never really been introduced to them in a way that was tasty.  Now I love them; whether I eat them in soups, as part of a potato dish, or even in cake, I think that their brilliant red color is beautiful.

Presentation is important to adults and children alike.  There is a story told around here about a man who hated veggies, and especially carrots.  One day someone made him  a carrot cake, and he devoured it.

His annoyed wife said "don't you know there were carrots in that cake?"
He replied;  "some people know how to fix carrots and some people don't".

Ha ha;  I have always loved that story.   I want to be one of those people that knows how to "fix carrots" because I want my family to eat all the beautiful healthful options that God gave us to eat.  I don't have to sacrifice flavor, comfort or beauty to do it.  Even though they are colorful, there is nothing fakey about these muffins.  I think you'll enjoy them.

Look at that purple color.  It is  beautiful don't you think? I made these purple sweet potatoes the night before I made the muffins.  They were delicious.  They tasted almost like cake, which is why I thought of putting them into muffins.    I got them at the health food store a little while back.  They were on sale, and they were pretty so I bought them.  Beautiful colored veggies say to me: "lots of antioxidants present".  These are also low glycemic. Here's a link that tells a little about them, if you want to read more.

I am wondering if I could grow them in the garden… probably too cold here, but perhaps in a green house.

Have your purple sweet potatoes precooked(baked or boiled is fine) and then you can scrape out the potato and mash it and you are ready to go.

 

Blueberries also score very high on the antioxidant scale.  You will want to eat more of them when you read the link above.

 

Fill the muffin cups almost to the top with batter.

They are not high risers… but they are delicious and moist.

They're so pretty when frosted. I know that technically "muffins" are not supposed to be frosted like this, where as "cupcakes" are. Never the less, I piped these with a  sugar free blueberry cream cheese frosting, and was very happy to cross my muffin over into cupcake realm (please don't tell anyone)

This is a low fat, high protein, high antioxidant recipe.  There is no sugar added, but the muffins are very sweet naturally,  and I've added  Xylitol and Truvia,  but feel free to use any sweetener you like.  

Purple Power Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup Oat Bran

1/4 cup Protein Powder  (plain or vanilla flavored) . If you don't have protein powder, use whole grain flour or sprouted wheat flour, or flax seed flour.

1 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Salt

2 cups Mashed Purple Sweet Potatoes

3/4  Cup Eryrithritol  or sweetener of choice

3 Eggs 

1/2 cup Egg Whites (from about 4 eggs)

2 cups Greek Yogurt (non fat)

4 tsp Vanilla

1 cup frozen blueberries

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix together oat bran, protein powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. Prepare sweet potatoes by removing skins, and mashing well.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs. 
5. Add remaining ingredients and sweet potatoes and mix well.
6. Add dry ingredients dry ingredients to wet ingredients.
7. Stir in frozen blueberries
8. Pour into lined and sprayed muffin tins
9. Bake for 20 -25 minutes.
10. Cool.
11. Top with Cream Cheese Frosting (or Non Fat Greek Style Yogurt for a low fat THM (E) meal)

Makes 24 Muffins

Sugar Free Blueberry Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

8 oz cream cheese (regular or the "Neufchatel"  low fat version taste wonderful).

1/2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

2 teaspoons unsweetened blueberry jam 

7 teaspoons Truvia brand stevia or sweetener of choice

Instructions:

1. Place all ingredients into a bowl
2. Mix with a handheld mixer.  This step is especially important if you want to pipe the frosting.  You want the blueberries  completely blended so you don't get any blueberry chunks stuck in the piping tip (ask me how I know this).   If you don't have a hand held mixer, you could blend the blueberries first in a blender or food processor, and then mix together with remaining ingredients with a mixer.
3. Spread or pipe onto  muffins.  The cream cheese frosting is delicious it tastes like blueberry cheese cake, and I could make a dessert out of the frosting alone… and no guilt, because there is no sugar or artificial anything in it.
4. If you use a non-fat frosting, you could use these muffins for an E meal on the Trim Healthy Mama diet plan.  Instead of using cream cheese, you could use non-fat cream cheese (not too tasty to me… but you could use it), or use non fat greek yogurt instead of cream cheese.  It won't be as easy to pipe, because it doesn't hold up as nicely; or you could dollop it on top.  I made them with the greek yogurt, and it was tasty, but not very pretty.  Steve and Eddie loved the cream cheese version… and I have to say so did I.  It makes the muffin just delicious.  What a better way to get those anti-oxidants into the bodies of your family than a beautiful purple muffin. 

When Steve tasted them he said "oh my word!" which translated means; these taste great.

I hope you enjoy them.  Have a great week.