Do you love sweet potatoes? Have some leftover fries? Want to get creative?

Why on earth would you change delicious fries?

I don’t know why anyone else would want to try this. I don’t know your life. But this week I made sweet potato muffins from scratch using leftover sweet potato fries in response to the #LeftoversChallenge on YouTube. The Leftovers Challenge is primarily a fundraiser to raise money for restaurant workers during the coronavirus crisis, but it takes the form of a creative cooking and baking challenge: order more food than you can eat from your local restaurant, and make something new from the leftovers.

Our favorite local restaurant is a place called Hunters Pub; the main reason we go there so often is my obsession with their crinkle-cut sweet potato fries. So we ordered dinner on Monday from Hunters Pub, including an extra side order of sweet potato fries, and I busted out my baking tools on Wednesday to join the challenge.

I probably won’t make these again, because restaurant sweet potato fries ain’t cheap and I love them too much to not straight-up eat them. But I actually started this recipe by making a basic sweet potato muffin recipe and then adapted it to using fries instead, so I could probably get great muffins just using actual sweet potatoes next time (have my fries and eat muffins, too!)

(This is my first time ever writing my own recipe. AND IT WORKED! How cool is that??)

Gluten-free sweet potato fry muffins (can be dairy-free)

You’ll need:

1.5 cups sweet potato fries, prepped: Put sweet potato fries in a food processor or blender. Pulse/blend until finely chopped. Add about 2-4 tablespoons of vegetable or canola oil, 2-4 tablespoons of water, and 1/2 cup milk (dairy or otherwise – I use almond) and blend/pulse again, until you get a smooth texture resembling mashed potatoes. (The amounts vary due to variations of the moisture and texture of different restaurants’ fries.)

If your fry mixture doesn’t make enough: If your fry mixture only totals about 1 cup (like mine did), add 1/4 cup unsweetened plain applesauce, 2 tablespoons of oil, and 1/4 cup milk. If you have 1.25 cups mashed fries, add 1 tablespoon of oil, 2 tablespoons of applesauce, and 2 tablespoons of milk.

• 2 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour (this would probably work just as well with regular flour)
• 4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 2 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup milk (again, whatever kind you prefer)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup white sugar

Optional: toppings or mix-ins (I used crushed pecans, slivered almonds, and chocolate chips as toppings)

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Prep two 12-count muffin tins by lining with paper cups or lightly spraying with non-stick or baking spray.
2. Prepare your sweet potato fries if you haven’t already. Put sweet potato fries in a food processor or blender. Pulse/blend until finely chopped. Add about 2-4 tablespoons of vegetable or canola oil, 2-4 tablespoons of water, and 1/2 cup milk (dairy or otherwise – I use almond), pulsing/blending regularly, until you get a smooth texture resembling mashed potatoes.
3. In one bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt. Add mix-ins if desired. Set aside.
4. In another large mixing bowl, combine 1.5 cups of the sweet potato fry mixture with the eggs, milk, vanilla, and honey. Whisk in the brown and white sugars.
5. Pour dry ingredients into wet mixture and stir with spoon or spatula just until combined.
6. Fill muffin cups about 1/2-2/3 full (depending on how big you like your muffins). Sprinkle toppings if desired.
7. Bake for about 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in a center muffin comes out clean and the tops bounce back when pressed gently with a finger.
8. Let cool before serving. (They stick to the muffin tin or paper wrappers if you don’t let them cool.)

Let me know if you decide to try this! What better time than now to get creative and experimental, right?

For more about the Leftovers Challenge and its fundraiser, click here: https://youtu.be/b2BVYLyua88

To learn about the restaurant workers’ organization benefiting from the fundraiser, click here: https://www.restaurantworkerscf.org/

To see me make this recipe in a video, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbZZK1Iylb0 (the steps and measurements are a little different since this was an experimental process – I refined and simplified to write it out here)