Sweet Potato Pudding

Sweet potatoes are the best.  They can be used in sweet or savory dishes; they count as a vegetable; and like their cousin the regular potato, they make great comfort foods.

I’ve been cooking with sweet potatoes for some time now.  I love them as fries and crave them in pies, but these dishes require lots of work.  Fortunately, they are a vegetable that is OK with a lazy man’s preparation, and still result in a dish that is tasty and satisfying.

Oh, a couple caveats.  This dish isn’t really a pudding.  I just call it that to distinguish it from the many other ways you might prepare a sweet potato.  Also, there’s a difference between sweet potatoes and yams; most people use the terms interchangeably where I’m from.  I’m not going to fuss over which one you choose, just go with whatever tastes good!

Sweet Potato Pudding

5 Large sweet potatoes or red yams

½ Stick of butter

1 Cup brown sugar

1.       Wash the sweet potatoes.  With a paring knife, score the skin of each potato lengthwise from end to end, and then a few times across the width.  This will make the potato easier to peel after its cooked.

2.       Bake the sweet potatoes at 350 degrees until soft, about 1 .5 to two hours.  [note: I swear by baking my sweet potatoes!  Many people cube and boil them but I find that baking them retains a lot of their natural, syrupy sweetness.]

3.       Let the potatoes cool until they are easy to handle but still warm. 

4.       Pull the skin back at the edges that were scored exposing the flesh.  Scoop the potao flesh into a large bowl.

5.       With a handheld cake mixer, beat the potato flesh for about one minute.  Remove the mixer and rinse off any strands that are clinging.  Repeat one or two times until many strands have been removed and the flesh is smooth.

6.       Add but butter and brown sugar and stir until mixed.

7.       Serve warm as a side dish or dessert.