the tolerant vegan

Last week, I had a couple of sweet potatoes that were fading fast and no idea of what I could do with them. Bake them? Boring. Dice them into fries? Yawn. Draw faces on each one and chase Sebastian around the apartment with them?

Maybe.

Later in the evening, after a rerun of The Office but before a rerun of The West Wing, I was scraping a spoon through a half-empty jar of peanut butter and dreaming about peanut butter blondies when it occurred to me that surely a fellow dessert-lover somewhere has combined mashed sweet potatoes and peanut butter together into a blondie recipe. A quick search was all it took to find a non-vegan recipe on Clean Eating that looked so delicious that I had to try it immediately. A couple of tweaks and substitutions later, a Vegan Sweet Potato Peanut Butter Blondie recipe was born!

Oh and guess what happened this weekend!

Home sweet home.

Regardless of the outcome, it was so great to be back in Philly, surrounded by cursing passionate fans.

Sweet Potato Peanut Butter Blondies
Recipe adapted from Clean Eating
Serves 12
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup vegan butter substitute, melted
• 1/2 cup vegan refined sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup vanilla or plain soy yogurt
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup cooked, peeled and mashed sweet potatoes
• 2/3 cup natural peanut butter (salted or unsalted)
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
• grape seed oil (for coating the pan, you can also use cooking spray)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

Lightly coat a 9 x 13″ baking dish with grape seed oil or a cooking spray of your choice.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sea salt and baking soda.

In a separate bowl, stir together the melted butter substitute, refined sugar and brown sugar.

Add in the soy yogurt, applesauce, mashed sweet potatoes, peanut butter, vanilla and cinnamon.

Slowly add in the flour mixture, stirring until all ingredients are fully combined. Spread the batter into the baking dish.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick can be inserted and removed with wet crumbs.

Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.