Sweet Potato Souffles

Sweet Potato Souffle

Thanksgiving is one of my very favorite holidays. No gifts to buy, very little (if any) decorating to do, and the only real expectation in my family has always been just good food, good wine, and maybe a movie or a walk towards the end of the evening. There are a few foods that really say Thanksgiving to me (or that represent Thanksgiving – I haven’t yet gotten to the point where the food actually talks to me. Yet). Those foods are turkey, stuffing, and sweet potatoes.

Now, we have a ton of potatoes in Washington. Red, yellow, white, blue, purple… there are potatoes everywhere. But sweet potatoes are just not something you see at the farmers market on your everyday Saturday. Lucky for us though, all of that oppressively hot weather we had this summer gave us one incredible benefit this year – a halfway decent sweet potato crop. We’ve been getting sweet potatoes in our CSA box for a couple of weeks now, but we have heard rumors that you might see them at the Alm Hill Gardens stand sometime in the next few weeks. We’ve also heard rumors that you can find them at the Bainbridge Island Farmers Market.

By the way… have you gotten your Thanksgiving turkey yet? You don’t have much more time. Order one NOW!

Sweet potatoes are actually a member of the morning glory family. Yeah, I know. That surprised me too. Yams are sweeter than sweet potatoes, despite the name. The sweet potatoes you’ll get in Puget Sound this year have a subtle depth of flavor and a smooth texture.

Let's dig in!

So now that you know sweet potatoes can be had in Puget Sound, how do you keep them until Thanksgiving. If there are sweet potatoes around at the end of October, then you should be just fine. Wipe off the sweet potatoes to remove any dirt, but don’t wash them. Place them in a mesh bag with an apple (this helps prevent sprouting) tand store them in a cool, dark place. If you do that, they should last a month. No guarantees of course, but in a basement or root cellar, you should be just fine. If you’re storing them at room temperature however, don’t expect them to last more than about 10 days.

Sweet Potato Souffles from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant

Serves 4

• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 Tbsp butter, melted
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup rum
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Cook the sweet potatoes. You can roast them in the oven, but I prefer boiling them since you’re going to mash them and roasting them could caramelize the outsides a bit too much.
3. Mash the sweet potatoes using a potato masher or stand mixer.
4. In the mixer, beat the sweet potatoes with the brown sugar, butter, eggs, rum, and cinnamon.
5. Transfer the batter in to a buttered 2 quart baking dish or into individual ramekins.
6. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out cleanly.
7. Cool slightly and serve warm or cold.

Sweet sweet potatoes

Notes: We chose to make individual servings of these souffles since we found some pretty individual ramekins at the store just a few weeks ago. Plus, this way you can set a slightly cooled ramekin on each placemat for your guests and there’s no dealing with passing a large baking dish around the table.

The flavor on these souffles was fantastic. You could definitely still taste the rum, so if you’re serving these to kids, I’d definitely cut the rum in half. The alcohol content will be negligible once they cook, but kids might not like the rum flavor. The souffles were light and airy when we ate them hot, but since there are only two of us, we had extras and chilled them for the next day. The centers fell a bit during the cooling process, but that’s standard operating procedure for souffles. When the souffles cooled, they took on a thicker, denser consistency. We ate them cold right out of the fridge. I will definitely make this dish again and I think it may very well make it to my Thanksgiving table.