The Unusual Ingredient That Will Take Your Baked Sweet Potatoes To A New Level
Our list of the best sweet potato recipes features lots of dessert-tinged ingredients like pralines, marshmallows, and even maple syrup to really emphasize the delightful flavor profile of these tasty tubers. However, a viral TikTok recipe ups their dessert factor even further by creating something akin to crème brûlée, thanks to the addition of an unlikely ingredient. In the clip, a baked sweet potato is sliced and topped with vanilla pastry cream, aka crème pâtissière.
Pastry cream is a type of custard that you often find in desserts like éclairs, and adding vanilla bean to the eggs, milk, sugar, and cornstarch gives it a rich flavor that's perfect for dressing up sweet potatoes. To truly replicate a classic crème brûlée recipe, the vanilla pastry cream topping gets a sprinkling of sugar before it's melted with a blowtorch to achieve a crunchy crust. Lest you think that this dessert idea is a touch too off-beat to truly work, the recipe was met with lots of enthusiasm in the clip's comments. As succinctly stated by one commenter, "Omg i am literally speechless this looks so good."
@eatsbyrachel Sweet potato but make it creme brulee 🍠🤯 #cremebrulee #sweetpotato #sweetpotatocremebrulee #sweetpotatoes #recipehack #recipe #foodie #viralrecipes
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Tips for perfecting a crème brûlée sweet potato
Simple baked sweet potatoes are the perfect foundation for ingredients like sugar and pastry cream, as these elements beautifully complement the savory yet sweet flavor of the root vegetables. As indicated in the TikTok clip featuring the sweetest sweet potato recipe you've ever seen, sweet potatoes come in varying levels of sweetness. For example, jewel varieties have a much milder flavor than Beauregards, which are bursting with sweetness but lack nuance. If you want a more complex base for your sweet ingredients, try using the Japanese satsuma-imo variety, which features hints of nuttiness alongside a tempered flavor.
When it comes to your pastry cream, you want a nice, thick consistency to prevent it from being overwhelmed by the denseness of the sweet potato. In this case, you'll need to whisk vigorously while heating the cream just to the brink of boiling. Your technique when torching the cream is also important for a dazzling finished dessert. Move the flame in a circular motion and keep it moving to avoid singed spots. You also want to hold the torch about two to three inches from the sweet potato while making the crust.