Sweet potato cake

While riding around on my new bicycle (!!) last weekend, I chanced across a small fruit-and-vegetable stand selling what I assume are farm-fresh vegetables. I can't tell, of course, since there's no way I could read this information even if it was advertised, or even ask, but I went in anyway and came out with numerous healthy treats, among them some sweet potatoes, which I just discovered on my top shelf this evening!

Sweet potato cakes are a traditional Japanese treat, naturally gluten-free, and healthy for you, so I figured I'd try my hand at them, since I'm actually not quite sure what else to do with Japanese sweet potatoes. Herein lies the recipe:



(Original recipe ganked from About.com)

• 3 small satsuma-imo (sweet potato/yam)
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tbsp butter or margarine
• 2 tbsp milk
• 2 tbsps sugar

The original recipe says to steam the potatoes and then peel them; I, of course, only started looking up recipes once I had peeled the raw potatoes, chopped them up and tossed them into some boiling water. It worked perfectly for the recipe, so I'm not sure if there's any real difference between steaming and boiling.

Mash the boiled potatoes together in a bowl; add the butter/margarine and the milk. Toss an egg between the two shell halves so that only the yolk remains - put the yolk in a small bowl, whisk it a bit, then add it to the mixture. Add the sugar, stir until blended.

Now, since my toaster oven has no heat setting on it, it's crap for baking almost anything because stuff will burn on the outside before the middle even gets warm: I took this into consideration, and spread the potato mixture into an aluminum loaf pan, but very thinly.

It's barely up to the halfway point there.

In the bowl previously used for mixing the egg yolk, put about 2 teaspoons of water, and stir it a little to make a glaze: spread this over the top of the potato mixture. Preheat the toaster oven for about 1-2 minutes, then pop the loaf pan inside, and set the timer for about eight minutes. I waited until it started turning brown on top and crisping slightly around the edges, then took it out and let it sit for about 5 minutes before tasting it.

Crumbly and delicious!

I think the whole thing, from start to finish, took me about fifteen minutes - not counting the time it took for me to make an emergency milk run to the store, of course ;) Quick, easy, and good for you, too!