Jess’s sweet potato puffs

  A while back, I told you about my friend Graham(you can read that post here).  Now it’s time to introduce you to his wife.  This is Jessica.  She’s got the poise of Grace Kelly and looks of a Vargas girl. She does everything well.  She’s always on time. When her son was a week old, she had my husband and I over to meet the baby and made hot appetizers (I counted showering as a major accomplishment when my daughter was a week old).  She also has killer style and a sly sense of humor.  If she was an actress, they’d call her a triple threat.  And did I mention she’s a doctor?

  I thought maybe I had found the chink in the armor when she told me about these sweet potato puffs. But damn it, they’re actually good.  Really. I find with friends like her, you can get all girl catty because they’re so out of your league, or you can just be grateful that they like you, too.  And enjoy the sweet potato puffs.

Sweet Potato Puffs

My husband and I are hosting both of our families for Thanksgiving for the very first time this year. We’ve had a handful of practice runs over the last decade, inviting friends for a belated Thanksgiving meal that followed the Thanksgiving meal we had with our families. But this year is the real deal, so I figure I’d better honor family tradition. When I was a kid, we always had sweet potato puffs at Thanksgiving. My grandmother made them for my dad, and my mom made them for us. When I was old enough to mash, I started to “help” my mom make this dish, and gradually took it on all together. I grew up thinking sweet potato puffs were as integral to the Thanksgiving meal as the turkey.

…until I became an adult and had my own kitchen. “What the hell are those?” my friends would always ask with a look of disgust on their faces. My family’s sweet potato puffs were looked upon with the same scorn as green bean casserole. Surely these things covered in corn flakes are the gross concoction of some soccer mom. I couldn’t believe that no one had ever heard of them before. Of course, this wasn’t the first time I was shocked that no one had heard about something that was an important part of my childhood. Go ahead and Wikipedia “Mummers Parade”. I thought every city had a 12 hour long parade of working class men dressed in elaborate glittery costumes doing choreographed dance moves.

For the record, most people are surprised at how good the sweet potato puffs taste. Give ‘em a whirl and see what you think.

Preheat oven to 350° degrees.

Ingredients:

• 5 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1″ pieces
• 2 tbl. butter
• 2 tbl. milk
• 2 tbl. light brown sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 & 1/2 c. corn flakes
• mini marshmallows

Boil the sweet potatoes. While they are boiling, put the corn flakes in a large Ziploc bag. Make sure to get as much air out as possible and seal the bag. Roll over the corn flakes with a rolling pin to crush them up pretty fine.

Once the potatoes are cooked, drain them and transfer to a mixing bowl. Add butter, milk, brown sugar, salt, and cinnamon and mash away. Now you are ready to make the puffs. To do this, place a dollop of the mixture in the palm of your hand. Then press some mini marshmallows into the center (I’d say 5 or 6 is good).

Add another dollop of sweet potato mixture on top of the marshmallows and shape into a ball. Each ball should be about 2.5” in diameter. Roll each ball in the crushed up corn flakes and place into a baking dish. This recipe should make about 12 balls. Cover with foil and bake for about 40 minutes, or until heated through and marshmallows have melted inside.

This year I decided to put a new spin on the recipe and make them spicy. To do this, simply add 2 tsp of adobo sauce (from the canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce) and 2 tsp maple syrup to the sweet potato mixture before forming the balls.

If you wanted to go really over the top, these would probably be even better if you made your own marshmallows. Personally I have no hopes of ever even attempting such a feat, but Krista makes it look easy! Although I have not road tested this, I think making maple marshmallows for these would be amazing. My best guess would be to adapt the vanilla marshmallow recipe as follows: skip the vanilla bean, decrease the vanilla extract to 1 tsp and add ½ tsp maple extract. If you are adventurous enough to try this you’ll have to report back.

Now that Thanksgiving is right around the corner I am feeling ready to break out these sweet potato puffs for my family. Baby Owen is starting on his first solid foods, so he’ll have to wait until next year to try them. In the mean time, we’ll be sure to save him some plain old mashed up sweet potatoes. With some luck he’ll like those better than he does peas!