When I told my mother – a fiend for candied ginger – that I was testing a batch of these muffins, she said she wished she could fly right over and dig in. She’s not the only one.

There’s just something about the combination of sweet potatoes and sweet spices that makes us happy. Every time my grandmother Ruth made her signature spice balls – wonderfully chewy cookies filled with every possible sweet spice – all the grandkids wafted into the kitchen from miles away.

These muffins start with cooked sweet potatoes, which not only provide great flavor and sugar, but also a tempting moistness. Slowly baking sweet potatoes in the oven intensifies their sweetness. For expediency, we chose to microwave them for this recipe. But if you’d rather do it the old fashioned (and tastier) way, plan to bake them for 1 to 1 1/2 hours at 400 degrees F.