“Food research and development? Sign me up for it.” That’s what Sophia Brazington, a food science student at Kansas State University, thought as she pondered her spring 2022 schedule.
Brazington’s foray into new food development began with an idea for a sweet potato muffin that eventually led to a muffin top being included in the university’s Konza table, a program where students in need of food eat once per receive food packages for the week.
“Although the sweet potato muffins weren’t my first choice when choosing a product, I knew there was a lot of potential for experimenting with a gluten-free version,” Brazington said.
Going the gluten-free route, she said, led to many possibilities that helped her decide to develop the muffin top out of sweet potatoes rather than the whole muffin. She said by making a muffin top, the product is less grainy and overall more palatable compared to other gluten-free products.
Like any scientist, Brazington initially had difficulty developing her recipe. She changed small things throughout the development process to affect the taste, texture, and experience of the muffin top.
She notes that the original recipe used boiled sweet potatoes, but she eventually switched to baked potatoes because they were better suited to help with caramelization and sweetness. Plus, she notes, the switch reduced food waste because she used leftover baked potatoes from K-State’s Kramer Dining Center.
After she nailed the recipe, she was asked to scale up her muffin tops because of the FarmUs research program.
In 2019, the Kansas Department of Agriculture and K-State received a Federal State Market Improvement Grant. The award funded the FarmUs project, a farm-to-campus collaboration aimed at developing on-campus consumer markets, leveraging student talent and innovation to create new product opportunities for sorghum and wheat.
“All of the products selected for scaling are unique, and we want innovative ideas that can be modified and scaled up for more robust use across the state,” said Kelly Whitehair, director of K-State’s coordinated program in dietetics. Sophia’s muffin-top “breakfast cookie” was the first menu item of this guise for (K-State) dining services. So not only did we get a fun new product, but also one that is gluten-free.”
