Sweet Potato Crumble

One of my new found joys Pinterest. Go check out my Pins here http://pinterest.com/sarah_kmas/. For those of you who have not discovered this website, do yourself a favour and make an account, or don't...if you value your time. That's what's been eating my time up lately but i'm fine with that because i've been finding fascinatingly wonderful things like this recipe there. 
For me, sweet potatoes have always been a vegetable that I would only find in a roast or in a salad, never really served like this delicious dessert. When I saw this recipe I was up for the experiment. It's a super easy recipe, a lot easier than I thought it would be. Basically its just cooking the sweet potatoes, mixing it with your ingredients, cooking and putting the crumble on top. I'm thinking you could even serve this as an appetiser or with dinner, just don't add sugar to the recipe? But I'll get back to you on that one. 


What you need:
(makes about 8 ramekins full)
For the Sweet Potato Mix
-3 cups cooked and mashed sweet potatoes (About 3 whole potatoes)
-1 cup sugar (I only used 2/3 cup. Sweet potatoes are already sweet!)
-½ teaspoon salt
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-2 eggs, well beaten
-1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted

For the Crumble:
-1 cup brown sugar
-1/3 cup flour
-1 cup chopped pecans
-1/3 cup butter, melted


You can present this dish however you like! You could use ramekins or just one large baking dish. I preferred the ramekins purely because they look cuter. 


How to Make it:
1.First you're going to need to cook your potatoes somehow. Before you do any cooking, make sure you wash and dry the potatoes and keep the skins on! It doesn't really matter how you cook them, as long as they are soft inside. There are three options to this step:
          a) Bake them at 200°C (400°F) for about 50minutes. 
          b) Boil them for about 30 minutes
          c) Microwave them. This is how I cooked mine. It's the quickest, easiest way. Peirce the potatoes a few times with a fork so they don't explode in and leave you a lovely mess in your microwave. Leave them in there for about 15minutes.
2. Preheat your oven to 190°C (375°F) and spray your ramekins or baking dish with nonstick spray.
3. Once your potatoes are cooked and soft on the inside you need to mash them up. An easy way to do this is to leave them in their skins and just squish them up, it's lots of fun! Then cut them in half and scoop out the middle. If you need to mash them up some more then go for it, with a fork or masher. 
4. In a large mixing bowl place all of your potato mix ingredients. Start with the sweet potato, then add sugar, salt, vanilla, eggs and melted butter. Beat the ingredients with a hand mix or kitchen aid mixer. Beat for about 4 minutes until the mixture is a light orange colour and fluffy and smooth. 
5. Spoon the mixture into your baking dishes. Be sure to leave enough room on top for the crumble. 

6. Put them in the oven to cook for around 20minutes. Pull them out when they are just brown on top. 
7. Make your crumble while your sweet potatoes are in the oven. To do this, just mix together your brown sugar, flour, pecans and melted butter. Use a fork to roughly mix the ingredients. 
8. Once your potatoes are done in the oven, pull them out and place the crumble mixture on top. Put them 
back in the oven for 10minutes until the pecans are lightly browned and the crumble is crunchy. 


Allow the ramekins to cool for about 15minutes before serving so the crumble is nice and crunchy! 
Delicious comfort food. Just the right amount of sweetness plus sweet potatoes have a butt-load of nutrients. I'l be definitely making these for thanksgiving. Enjoy :)