From The Oven: The Great Sweet Potato Calamity (and my Sweet Potato Soufflé (Super Southern Style))

I feel delinquent... I meant to get this posted around Canadian Thanksgiving for my friend K, who asked for it after I posted about it on Facebook, and then it just got away from me.
Well, now it's American Thanksgiving, and I've got my writing-groove going, so here we go.

First, a little background about why this Canadian girl loves a Southern dish like Sweet Potato Soufflé, and the great Calamity story.
I lived in Atlanta for four very formative years (grades 7-10) and while some of that time was not ideal (namely, 7th grade, most of which I have literally blocked out and do not remember at all), some of it was supremely excellent.  I have some wonderful friends to this day from high school, and I also experienced some idyllic teenage American life.  Friday night football games, sleep overs, hanging around at the mall, charity car washes.  It was awesome.

I also had a step-grandmother, Louise, who was (since I have 0 contact with anyone from my ex-step-father's family... but if you're out there, I'd love to hear from you!) a wonderful Southern cook.  She doted on me, and I loved it.
She would *literally* bake a cake because she knew I was coming over!

One Thanksgiving (could've been a Christmas, but this feels like a Thanksgiving story), she had the sweet potato soufflé, covered in marshmallows of course, baking in the oven.
My step-father, who was a bit accident prone, was the one to take it out.

I don't know what happened next exactly, but all I saw was a slo-mo of the casserole dish falling to the floor.... the orange and white contents flowing UP in a GIANT wave.... and then splashing down against the floor next to the wood paneled wall, causing a ricochet effect and further traveling of the wave... ooooohhhhhh....

It was GLORIOUS in its disastrousness. It was historic. The Calamity lives on in the annual telling of the story (between me and my mother), who witnessed it as well.
There is laughter until there are tears, usually. 

The only orange wave I could find. Ah...the days before cell phone cams! It was just like this, but with more wood paneling and less sunny beach

Ok, so, with that in mind (!) let me tell you how I now make my sweet potatoes for holidays.  This is sort of a ratio thing, and I don't think you can get it wrong.  Just don't over-bake the marshmallows, or they disappear, and I become sad.

Ingredients:

4-6 sweet potatoes (nothing fancy, not purple or anything, just the regular ones)
2-3 eggs
1 stick of butter, softened (or margarine, or leave it out if you don't like delicious things)
1/2c heavy cream (depends on how many potatoes you are using, what texture you like, etc), or 1/2 and 1/2, or evaporated milk, or regular milk. But really, cream.
1/2c. brown sugar, and white sugar (or splenda) to taste
pinch of salt
1-2tsp of combined cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger-- or use pre-mixed pumpkin pie spice, but then it will taste a lot like your pie, no?
1 bag of mini marshmallows (which are traditional, but big ones cut in half work fine too)
BIG casserole dish (1.5 to 2qts?) and butter or non-stick spray

Directions:

Heat oven to 350
While that is happening, wash the potatoes well, and poke them all over with a fork, and then you can microwave them until they are very soft.  I'd say at least 20 minutes.
You can boil them and peel them if you like, or you can peel them and boil them (which is harder), but you'll lose nutrients to the water.

Once they are soft and cool enough to handle but still warm, peel the sweet potatoes and dump them in a big bowl. Don't leave too much behind on the skins, scrape if need be.
Mash them up with a potato masher.

Now you can keep going with the masher, or switch to a handheld mixer, or a whisk.
Mix in the soft butter, and the eggs, and mix well.
Should be thick. Now mix in your dairy of choice, a little at a time, until you get to the texture you like.  You are going for a loose mash, but NOT a pie filling.  Get it to where you like it.
Add the pinch of salt, and the brown sugar, and give it a taste for sweetness. Add more brown or white sugar (or splenda, of course) to your taste.
Add the spices-- start with 1tsp of cinnamon and shake in the others if you like them, and taste.

Ok, now the mash is where you like it, yes? Don't eat it all yet. It's better baked.

Grease (with butter, or non-stick spray) your casserole dish, and pour in the mash. Smooth it out. There should be room between the top of the mash and the top of the casserole, to help hold the marshmallows on.
Cover with aluminum, and bake the casserole for about 30-40 minutes at 350 (could be 375 if your oven is set higher for something else).  At this point, you can remove them and wait until closer to dinner, or keep going.

Now, remove the aluminum (did I really need to say that? You're probably stressed out with family coming and everything, so, yes, I did. You're welcome).
Top with mini marshmallows. Don't be shy. We're not talking 1 layer here. Dump them on there and spread them out.  They should sit somewhat above the top of the rim of the casserole dish.
Bake about 10 more minutes, until the marshmallows are puffy and golden, but not over cooked because then they disappear and become a sticky glaze. Not what you want.

I used big marshmallows, and I'm ok with that.

Put out on the table to ooohs and aaaaahs, and enjoy.  I like it warm, and then I really like it cold all the rest of the week!

From the Oven: Making light of baking - Honey cake and Banana Yogurt cake/muffins

I've been wrapped up in the renovation, and then travel for work, and then getting really sick because of... well, who knows why one gets a stomach virus, but I can tell you that stress and travel don't HELP at all.

I'm starting to feel better, so I thought I'd update you with some baking experiments I've snuck in here and there (pre-and-post sickness, lest I bake the virus into something...).

It's starting to be Fall here in the northeast, and I didn't have a chance to get together with my family at the big family dinner in September, so I wanted to remind myself of "home" AND try out all my new counter space.

So I dug out my old food processor recipe book.

Don't snicker.  This was my second recipe book (more on my first, some other time) and food processors were making their way into home kitchens in the 80's.  This one, The Pleasures of Your Food Processor by Noreen Gilletz, is basically a version of Second Helpings Please, with the recipes tweaked for the processor (check out her other books as well... looks like the food processor one has a 30th anniversary update!).

I remember reading my mother's copy all the time. There were great tips at the start of most chapters-- like why your cake would have "tunnels" in it, different types of substitutions you could make for ingredients, and metric to Imperial conversions.

My copy has this neat feature where the cover bends back, so it becomes its own recipe stand!

The bend in the cover is so it can fold back and become a recipe stand. GENIUS!

I love a lot of the cake recipes from this book, and the two I've made recently are great in their original format.
However, since I'm watching my calorie intake, I decided to try to lighten up both recipes, and am delighted at my own success!

Honey Cola Cake
My all-time favorite honey cake recipe.  My mom and I aced this cake years ago, which was great because my Great-Aunt Celia also made Honey Cake yearly, but she burned the heck out of them (and I don't think she was aware), and so my first memories of honey cake are not the greatest... but this cake is foolproof, and really delicious.

The original recipe from the above book calls for brown sugar, eggs, 3/4c of oil, 1/2c of cola (could be regular or diet), 1c of honey, and the regular flour, baking powder and baking soda, cinnamon.

I swapped out the entirety of the oil for unsweetened applesauce, which brought the calorie count per slice (for 12 generous slices) down from 363 to 249.
This is a great trick, and can be used in any cake that calls for oil. Substitute some or all of the oil for unsweetened applesauce, which helps keep the cake moist.

By doing this, I lowered the fat from 15g per slice to 1g, and cholesterol became negligible.
I also swapped 1/3 of the brown sugar  for splenda (so 1/2c brown sugar and 1/4c splenda), and reduced the calories further to 232.
You can safely remove 1/4 to 1/3 of the sugar from any cake recipe-- in this case, I kept some in, for it's various properties (aside from sweetening, sugar adds texture, draws in and keeps moisture, adds to browning, tenderizing the gluten... this is why you can't just straight substitute sugar for Splenda or other non-sugar sweeteners, which don't all have these properties).

So the final count for this cake (1/12th) comes to:
232 calories
1g fat
53g carb
4g protein
1g fiber
7% calcium
10% iron
2% vitamin A
trace vitamin C

Here's how to make my lightened Honey Cola Cake:

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

3 large eggs

1 cup honey

3/4 cup applesauce, unsweetened

1/2 cup diet cola

1/4 cup splenda (bulk)

Directions:
Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Make sure to do this 20-30 minutes before you start baking, to ensure the oven is at the proper temperature (the first beep isn't the right temperature... you basically need a good oven thermometer to ensure you're there).

Grease (or use a spray oil, like Pam) a 12" Bundt pan, or 10" tube pan.  You need that hole in the middle of the pan to ensure the cake bakes evenly.  You could try other pans, but will have to adjust the baking time.

First, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon until blended.
Put aside in another bowl.

Flour mix, set aside, and the applesauce, standing by.

Process the brown sugar splenda, and eggs for about 30 seconds.  Then add applesauce and honey, blend for another 90 seconds.

Eggs and sweeteners (splenda and packed brown sugar) before blending.

Remove processor cover, and add the dry ingredients, pour the cola over that. Pulse for 4-5 quick turns, just until the dry ingredients are incorporated (a few lumps are ok, you can grab those with your spatula).

Immediately pour the batter into your pre-greased pan. 

Before baking

Bake at 325 degrees for about 1hr, and check that the cake is done with a fork or toothpick-- stick it into the middle, and if it comes up pretty clean (a crumb or 2 is fine), you're set.

Also, when the cake starts to pull away from the sides, you are for sure done!

After baking. Yes, it is gorgeous!

Let cool in the pan for about 20 minutes, before you remove from the pan to cool on a cake rack. 

Look at that light texture! It's really a delicious and easy cake.

The cake keeps well (honey is a deterrent to weird things growing, and keeps it moist), and definitely freezes well.

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Similarly, I was able to convert my favorite banana cake recipe.  The recipe has yogurt in it for tang and to help leaven the cake (you'll see!).

In this case, I replaced the butter with unsweetened applesauce (which is a bit risky-- butter and oil are NOT the same, chemically speaking.  Butter has fat AND water, and milk solids, whereas oil is just a pure liquid fat.  But it seems to have worked), and replaced the 1.5 cups (!) of sugar with 1/2c brown sugar, 1/2c xylitol, and 1/2c splenda.
The brown sugar is more flavorful than white sugar, and contains molasses, which helps make it moist (and is where the brown flavor and color come from).  The Xylitol is a great sugar substitute, with good flavor and browning abilities-- I'm liking it more and more in my sweet treats.  Splenda just adds sweetness, but doesn't do much in terms of texture, which is why I needed the other sweeteners. It is the lowest calorie sweetener of the bunch.

The original recipe made 9 servings, which must've been HUGE... I decided to make muffins, and I made 18 muffins, so we'll compare against that number.

The original would've been 187 calories per muffin, with 6g of fat (3 saturated) and 38mg cholesterol
My lightened version  has 123 calories per muffin, 1g of fat, and 24mg cholesterol.
Lots of folate and B1

here's the stats for 1 of 18 muffins (I made 12 slightly bigger and 6 slightly smaller, but let's say I made them all even, and this would be the count):
123 cal
1g fat
24mg cholesterol
111mg sodium
101mg potassium
27g carb
6g fiber (some of this is how the xylitol is counted)
3g protein
4% calcium
5% iron
2% vitamin C
1% vitamin A
8% B1
7% Folacin

Ingredients:

2 large eggs

1/2 cup applesauce, unsweetened

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup splenda (bulk)

1/2 cup xylitol

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 large bananas

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup greek yogurt 0% fat

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:
Heat your oven to 350 degrees.  Do this a good 20-30 minutes before you start baking.

In a food processor, combine the eggs, applesauce, sweeteners, and vanilla.  Whiz for 2 minutes, scraping down the bowl once.
While it's running, drop in the banana in chunks, and whiz until fully processed and smooth.

Meanwhile, in a 2c measuring cup or a bowl, mix 3/4c of yogurt (greek 0% or regular non-fat, or even regular yogurt of a different %, but you'll have higher calories), with the 1tsp of baking soda.
This will take about 2 minutes to DOUBLE IN VOLUME.
Have the kids watch that... :)

Mix the 2c of flour with the 1tsp of baking powder. Set aside.

Mix the yogurt/baking soda puff into the banana mixture with a few quick pulses.
Then mix in the flour/baking powder with about 4 quick pulses.

Pour into your muffin pans,  sprayed with Pam, or a well greased 9x9 pan, or a bundt pan... you can't really go wrong with this recipe.

Well, unless your oven isn't hot enough...then your muffins will be flat, like mine. The leaveners need a quick BLAST of high temperature to start working, and this is why pre-heating your oven is SO CRITICAL.

Let this be a lesson!!!

they still taste delicious though...

 

Yes, the muffins are flat. My oven wasn't hot enough.  Still delicious, but flat.

Bake for 40 minutes at 350 and check for done-ness.  Bake up to 50 minutes total. (Muffins take less time than a full pan of cake).
Easily frozen, and could be frosted if you like that kind of thing.