Flourless healthy Double Chocolate Sweet Potato Muffins made with all wholesome ingredients. Grain-free, refined sugar-free, dairy-free paleo muffins that taste like chocolate cake!
Have you ever thought to yourself, “Boy, I sure could use a muffin that tastes like chocolate cake…..” ???
First, I have this inner dialogue regularly.
Secondly, you’re in luck!
I’m here with my latest favorite muffin recipe that is reminiscent of chocolate cake AND is made with a hidden vegetable.
Based off my Healthy Sweet Potato Brownies and my Healthy Sweet Potato Chocolate Cake, these rich and fudgy double chocolate sweet potato muffins are a real treat for chocolate lovers.
Plus, they come with hidden health benefits!
Whether or not you’re into health-conscious sweet treats, these amazing chocolate muffins are the chocolate lover’s dream!
The way I see it, these flourless sweet potato muffins are on the healthier end of the treat spectrum because they are made with all unprocessed ingredients (save for the chocolate chips) and less added sugar.
Sure, there may be a decent fat content from the almond butter, but the fat in almond butter is generally considered heart healthy. Plus, it comes with the added benefit of dietary fiber.
You can further reduce the amount of sugar in the muffins by using less chocolate chips or omitting them altogether.
Sweet potatoes or yams are considered one of the world’s superfoods due to its high concentration of micronutrients. High in antioxidants, potassium, and Vitamin A, yams and sweet potatoes provide a boost to the immune system.
Similarly, cocoa powder is rich in polyphenols and is said to help lower cholesterol and possibly protects against neurodegeneration.
Not to mention, they are so loaded with chocolatey goodness, you’d never guess they are made with good-for-you real food.
The texture of these muffins is dense and fudgy. To me, they are reminiscent of Costco’s chocolate muffins without as much sugar or oil.
My current favorite muffin recipe!
Let’s discuss the simple ingredients for chocolate sweet potato muffins.
Chocolate Sweet Potato Muffin Ingredients:
Sweet Potato: The main ingredient in these flourless sweet potato muffins! Mashed sweet potato provides natural sweetness and moisture. Plus, sweet potatoes are loaded with Vitamin A, potassium, and antioxidants and are considered a superfood.
If you can find canned sweet potato at your local grocery store, feel free to use it! If you have leftover sweet potatoes, feel free to use them in this application! I recommend using a yam or a white sweet potato for the best results.
Eggs: A couple large eggs help the muffins rise. The texture of these muffins is fairly dense and fudgy, similar to brownies.
Unsweetened Almond Butter: Taking the place of regular all purpose flour and butter, almond butter provides structure and richness in these healthy chocolate sweet potato muffins. The healthy fats make this delicious chocolate muffin a great healthy snack for busy mornings.
Avocado Oil: A little avocado oil brings more moisture and richness to these gluten free double chocolate muffins. Melted coconut oil, butter, olive oil, or vegetable oil work here too.
Pure Maple Syrup: Rather than using refined sugar to sweeten the muffins, I use pure maple syrup to keep them refined sugar-free and paleo friendly.
Vanilla Extract: A splash of pure vanilla extract brings warm flavor to these healthy chocolate muffins.
Cocoa Powder: Much of the chocolate flavor comes from unsweetened cocoa powder. I like using raw cacao powder because it tastes creamier and less bitter than regular cocoa powder.
Baking Powder: The leavening agent here, baking powder helps the muffins rise and keeps them held together nicely.
Cinnamon and Sea Salt: While the cinnamon is optional, I love the way it makes baked goods taste so warm and inviting. Leave it out if you aren’t into it or use pumpkin pie spice. But don’t skip the sea salt, because it helps enhance all the flavors.
Chocolate Chips: Semisweet chocolate chips, mini chocolate chips, or dark chocolate chips are a great addition to bring pockets of fudgy goo and level up the sweetness of the muffins. Use dairy-free chocolate chips if you need the recipe to be entirely dairy-free.
If you aren’t adding the chocolate chips, know that the muffins won’t be as sweet. This isn’t a tragedy for people like me who prefer less sweet sweets.
All of the ingredients for these flourless chocolate muffins can be found at any grocery store.
Once combined, we’re left with gluten-free sweet potato muffins that are suitable for the paleo diet and are so moist, rich, and fudgy!
They are kind of like fudge brownie muffins.
Recipe Adaptations:
- You can replace the peanut butter with any other well-stirred nut butter or seed butter, including peanut butter, cashew butter, tahini, and sunflower seed butter. Just be sure you enjoy the flavor of whatever you use.
- Add 1 to 4 tablespoons of brown sugar or coconut sugar for sweeter muffins.
- Mix in 2/3 cup of chopped walnuts or pecans to add nutty texture to these healthy sweet potato muffins.
- I haven’t tested the recipe using an egg replacer like flax egg. Feel free to leave a comment below if you try it!
- For a coconut flour and brown rice flour version, make my Gluten-Free Sweet Potato Muffins recipe.
- Use canned pumpkin puree instead of mashed sweet potatoes in these healthy muffins.
Now that we’ve covered the basic ingredients, let’s bake these delicious chocolate sweet potato muffins!
First, let’s begin by cooking the sweet potato. If you’re already familiar with cooking sweet potatoes, proceed using your preferred method.
How to Cook A Sweet Potato:
There are multiple ways you can cook a sweet potato for this recipe. I have included boiling, microwave, and roasting instructions here.
Boiling Instructions: Fill a large pot with water and bring it to a full boil. Peel and chop the sweet potato into small chunks.
Once the water is boiling, carefully transfer the chopped sweet potato to the hot water and boil for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the sweet potato is very tender when poked with a fork. Drain the water and allow the sweet potato to cool.
Roasting Instructions: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Wash the sweet potato well and poke it many times with a fork. Wrap the sweet potato in aluminum foil.
Bake sweet potato for 45 to 65 minutes (depending on the size of the sweet potato), or until it is very tender.
Microwaving Instructions: Wash and scrub the sweet potato. Poke it several times with a fork. Wrap the sweet potato in one large paper towel, then run the wrapped sweet potato under the kitchen faucet to completely saturate the paper towel with water.
Squeeze off any excess water then transfer the sweet potato to a plate. Microwave on high heat (still wrapped in the wet paper towel) for 5 minutes.
Flip then microwave for another 5 minutes. Gently squeeze the sweet potato to check for doneness. If the potato does not feel soft, continue microwaving for another 2 to 4 minutes or until it is very soft.
Once your sweet potato has finished cooking, allow it to cool to room temperature. You may consider cooking the sweet potato ahead of time so that you don’t have to wait for it to cool down.
Now that our sweet potato is cooked, let’s prepare this gluten-free chocolate sweet potato muffin recipe.
How to Make Double Chocolate Sweet Potato Muffins:
Cook a large sweet potato using your preferred cooking method. Once cool enough to handle, mash the sweet potato and measure 1 cup.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a muffin tin with paper liners.
Transfer the sweet potato puree, almond butter, eggs, pure maple syrup, and vanilla extract to a large mixing bowl. Mix until the wet ingredients are well-combined.
Add the cocoa powder, baking powder, sea salt, and cinnamon (the dry ingredients) to the bowl with the wet ingredients. Mix well until a thick muffin batter forms.
If adding, stir in the chocolate chips.
Fill the muffin liners ¾ of the way full with muffin batter. If you’d like, sprinkle the top of the batter with extra chocolate chips.
Bake on the center rack of the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the muffins test clean.
Muffins are considered fully cooked once they reach an internal temperature of 190 to 200 degrees F.
If you have a meat thermometer and you want to check for doneness, you can insert the digital thermometer into the center of a muffin.
Allow muffins to cool to room temperature before peeling off a muffin paper and eating. While it is super tempting to eat muffins while they are still warm, doing so causes you to lose a lot of the muffin to the paper liner.
For this reason, I recommend waiting for the chocolate muffins to cool completely.
I always suggest warming one up in the microwave with a little melted butter.
How to Store Muffins:
Store sweet potato chocolate muffins in an airtight container or a large zip lock bag in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Muffins freeze very well! You can freeze muffins in a large ziplock bag for up to 3 months.
The next time your sweet tooth is speaking to you and you’re in the mood for something chocolatey, whip up a batch of these healthier chocolate sweet potato muffins!
Made with all healthy ingredients without a lot of added sugar, this is the kind of treat I’m comfortable eating daily. It can easily serve as a quick snack, post workout snack to go with some protein, or dessert.
I always recommend making a double batch if you’re looking to keep some delicious sweet potato muffins on hand.
If you’re a muffin lover, also try out some of these delicious gluten-free muffin recipes.
More Healthy Muffin Recipes:
- Almond Flour Pumpkin Muffins
- Spiced Apple Carrot Muffins
- Strawberry Oatmeal Muffins
- Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins
- Blueberry Almond Flour Muffins
- Healthy Morning Glory Muffins
- Gluten-Free Chocolate Banana Muffins
Get your chocolate fix in the form of paleo chocolate muffins!
Healthy Double Chocolate Sweet Potato Muffins
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup mashed sweet potato
- 1 cup unsweetened almond butter
- 2 large eggs
- ⅔ cup pure maple syrup
- 2 Tbsp avocado oil
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- ⅔ cup cocoa powder
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon optional
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips *
Instructions
- Cook a large sweet potato using your preferred cooking method (see post above for cooking instructions). Once cool enough to handle, mash the sweet potato and measure 1 cup.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a muffin tin with paper liners.
- Transfer the sweet potato puree, almond butter, eggs, pure maple syrup, avocado oil, and vanilla extract to a large mixing bowl. Mix until the wet ingredients are well-combined.
- Add the cocoa powder, baking powder, sea salt, and cinnamon (the dry ingredients) to the bowl with the wet ingredients. Mix well until a thick muffin batter forms.
- If adding, stir in the chocolate chips.
- Fill the muffin liners ¾ of the way full with muffin batter. If you’d like, sprinkle the top of the batter with extra chocolate chips.
- Bake on the center rack of the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the muffins test clean.
- Muffins are considered fully cooked once they reach an internal temperature of 190 to 200 degrees F. If you have a meat thermometer and you want to check for doneness, you can insert the digital thermometer into the center of a muffin.
- Allow muffins to cool to room temperature before peeling off a muffin paper and eating.
Notes
Nutrition
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no flour?
the cake doesn’t seem to be solidifying
Hi Desiree! I’m not sure what you’re asking here. Are you able to provide more information? The cake rises and fluffs up in spite of the fact that there’s no flour, if this is what you’re wondering 😉
This recipe turned out pretty well for me. I am someone who has a lot of dietary restrictions so it’s rare that I come across a recipe that I can actually have.
A few substitutions that I made that some people might want to try:
Instead of eggs, I used two gelatin eggs. A gelatin egg is where you dissolve one tablespoon of gelatin into three tablespoons of warm water.
Instead of maple syrup, I used a few teaspoons of stevia. Since the syrup and egg have crucial liquid to add to the recipe, I added a little extra almond butter and a bit of water to make up for it.
I was pretty nervous that the recipe wouldn’t work out with these substitutions, but it turned out much better than I expected.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience, Liz! I’ll have to try the recipe using gelatin eggs at some point! xo
Can I use swerve sugar instead of maple syrup
Hi Betsy! Definitely! I would use 3-4 tablespoons of swerve and I would add an extra tablespoon of oil to offset the loss of liquid. Let me know how they turn out! xo
Recipe doesn’t give the quantity for chocolate chips.
Thank you for catching that! I use 1/2 cup but you can add up to 1 cup depending on how fudgy/decadent you want the muffins 🙂
I like your recipe but I am pure vegetarian don’t eat eggs, meat etc. I love to bake. If you don’t mind could you suggest me to instead of eggs what can I use it.
Thank you
🌹🙏🌹
Hi Sonal! I haven’t tested the recipe with an egg replacer, but I’m betting flax eggs would work. The texture will likely be denser, but if you’re okay with that I would give it a try. Let us know how it turns out! xo
Where do you get almond butter?
Can I use coconut sugar instead of brown sugar?
Hi Renee! Most grocery stores carry almond butter next to peanut butter…I’m hoping it’s the same in your area. In terms of coconut sugar – you can use coconut sugar to replace the pure maple syrup as long as you add some form of milk to offset the loss of liquid. If it were me, I would do 2/3 cup of coconut sugar and add 1/2 cup of regular milk or some form of non-dairy milk. Let me know if you have any other questions! xo