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Vegan Sweet Potato Muffins with Pecan Streusel

4.95 from 52 reader reviews
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Servings 10 Muffins
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Ingredients

Streusel

  • ½ cup pecan halves, chopped
  • 5 tablespoons coconut sugar (or brown sugar)
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • pinch fine sea salt
  • 3 tablespoons cold vegan butter

Sweet Potato Muffins

  • 2 cups light spelt flour
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 1½ cups mashed cooked sweet potato flesh
  • ½ cup maple syrup
  • ½ cup melted coconut oil or vegan butter, at room temperature
  • 2 tablespoons non-dairy milk (I used coconut)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 400°F. Lightly grease 10 cups of a standard size muffin tin and set aside.
  • Make the streusel topping. In a small bowl, whisk together the chopped pecans, coconut sugar, salt, and cinnamon. Add the vegan butter to the bowl and mix it in with your fingers, breaking up the bits of butter and working them into the sugar and pecans. Once you have a sandy and crumbly texture, and the streusel sticks together when you pinch it with your fingers, set aside in the refrigerator.
  • In a large bowl, combine the spelt flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and sea salt. Stir with a spatula to evenly mix.
  • In an upright blender, combine the mashed and cooked sweet potato, maple syrup, coconut oil, non-dairy milk and vanilla. Blend on high until totally smooth and creamy.
  • Pour the puréed sweet potato mixture into the large bowl with the spelt flour mixture. Use your spatula to get all of the sweet potato mixture you can out of the blender. Gently stir and fold everything together until JUST combined.
  • Divide the muffin batter evenly among the 10 prepared muffin cups. Grab the pecan streusel from the fridge and divide it evenly among the tops of the muffins. Really press it into the muffin batter with your fingers.
  • Bake the sweet potato muffins for 18-20 minutes, or until the tops are domed and slightly darkened and a paring knife/cake tester inserted into the middle of one comes out clean. Let the muffins cool completely before enjoying!

Equipment

Recipe Notes

  • This recipe is based on my banana bread recipe, so feel free to sub mashed banana for the sweet potato!
  • I know it seems fussy to have liquid sweetener in the muffin and granulated sweetener in the streusel, but the streusel really does require a granulated sweetener for that crunch and structure.
  • Substitutes for the light spelt flour: whole spelt flour (the muffins will definitely be more dense and may require some extra non-dairy milk in the batter), all purpose flour, and gluten-free all purpose mixtures should work (I always recommend the one by Pamela’s).
  • If you love cardamom, a 1/4 teaspoon of ground cardamom in the muffin batter would be delicious in this recipe.
  • I think this recipe would work fine in a standard loaf pan, but you may have to cover the top with foil to prevent the streusel from burning. For a loaf, I’d bake it covered at 350 for about 35 minutes and then another 15-20 minutes uncovered.
Vegan sweet potato muffins with pecan streusel are a cozy treat that’s just sweet enough. Made with spelt flour, maple syrup, and roasted sweet potatoes.