Coconut and Sweet Potato Muffins with Ginger, Cinnamon and Maple Syrup

I've been suffering with a bad back all year.  It was slightly relieved during an expensive three-month course of treatment at the local chiropractic clinic but kept flaring up whenever I walked more than two miles or tried to go for a run. I decided that I could achieve stretching and strengthening in a more proactive way through yoga, so I downloaded a really great yoga app and am squeezing in 5 sessions a week of between 20 and 45 minutes.

It was during a 35 minute session this morning that a few messages from my friend in Italy popped onto my phone screen. The messages included a photo and recipe for flour-free coconut and sweet potato muffins with ginger, cinnamon and maple syrup, which I have to say I found quite distracting as I was yet to have breakfast. Anyway, once the yoga session was over I had a study of the recipe, followed by a check of the weather forecast.  The latter confirmed that I would be unlikely to be spending any time gardening this afternoon so I checked the muffin ingredients, popped to the shops, and got cooking.

I found a few glitches in the recipe so here's my speedy version:

Take a clean, medium sized sweet potato, stab it a few times with a sharp knife and microwave it for 4-6 minutes or until soft.  (If you don't have a microwave you'll need to bake it in a hot oven for about 45-60 minutes or until soft.) Whilst the sweet potato is cooking, preheat the oven to 200C, 185C if using a fan oven, or gas mark 6 (obviously you'll be doing this anyway if you are cooking your sweet potato in the oven!); and lightly oil a 12-hole muffin tin.

Once the sweet potato is cooked and cool enough to handle, cut it open and scoop out the flesh into a mixing bowl or large jug. Discard the flesh (or eat it as a snack). Add 1 cup of coconut milk, half a cup of maple syrup, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and 3 lightly beaten eggs. Mix together well - I used a stick blender to ensure there weren't any lumps of sweet potato.

In another large mixing bowl place 1 cup of rice flour or a gluten-free plain flour blend, a quarter of a cup of coconut flour, 2 tablespoons of gluten-free baking powder, 1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of ground ginger, half a teaspoon of salt, a pinch of grated nutmeg and a pinch of ground cloves.

Mix together the dry ingredients and form a well in the centre. Pour in the blended wet ingredients and mix thoroughly with a balloon whisk. Spoon the mixture evenly into the muffin tin.

Going into the oven

Pop into the oven and bake.  The recipe on-line says to cook them for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean but mine took just 25 minutes and were looking rather well done.

I just couldn't wait for them to cool down

They get a big thumbs up from me. The cat was also very keen - I caught her running down the hall with one in her jaws. I'd only turned my back to get the cake tin to store them in!

Laundry accidents and electronic gadgets

I seem quite good at accidentally bundling woollen garments up with the ordinary laundry, putting them through a far-too-hot spin cycle and pulling them out as shrunken bits of felt. I then feel too guilty to throw them away and so they sit in a box in the craft room waiting for me to find the time and the inspiration to turn them into something.

Yesterday, I finally had some time on my hands, thanks to this month's Craft Club, and so I dipped my hands into the pools of inspiration.

An old wool walking sock seemed to lend itself to a pouch of some description and, since I am sick of rooting through the desk draw trying to match the cable to my laptop's external hard drive, I decided the match up the two (putting an all new meaning to pairing socks?)

I chopped off the foot, sewed up the newly cut seam, sewed a loop from scrap of ribbon to the top opening and added a button from the button tin.

One computer hard drive and cable safely stored.

Next, I turned my attention to the Sat Nav - also something that needs a protective case for when it gets shoved in my handbag or rucksack when out and about. For this I selected an old beanie hat.

I cut up the side seam and removed the oval shape that made up the top of the hat.  This gave me a rectangle of flat fabric. To protect the short edges, which would take a bit of a battering each time the Sat Nav was pulled in and out of the pouch, I bound them with some bias binding that I had left over from a previous project.

This done, I folded one end up to form a pouch large enough to fit the Sat Nav and the other end was folded down and inside the pouch to form a short closure flap, about half the height of the pouch. After sewing the two side seams, I inverted the pouch so that the seams were on the inside, and the folded the closure flap securely over the opening.

The finished pouch

Sat Nav safely stowed...

...and closed

It was all so simple that I'm feeling inspired to do something with the remaining pile of jumpers. Although, that may just have to wait for another weekend. For now, the sun is out and the front garden needs weeding!