Surprise Sweets

We had plans to go grocery shopping today since we haven’t been since Thursday or Friday of last week, but we decided sometime midafternoon that we wanted to stay in instead.  So because of our laziness, our bellies – still charged from the race with the motley ravenousness of a pregnant woman – had to make due with what remained in the fridge and pantry.

We ate thus: Lunch was frozen turkey burger patties grilled on the George Foreman Lean Mean, etc.  with whatever condiments we found in the fridge (luckily we still had some cheese slices and fresh spinach leafs – our regular lettuce stand-in).  Dinner for Dad was a last link of spicy sausage sliced & pan-cooked then mixed with a heated can of black-eyed peas, topped with vanilla yogurt (his idea, not mine).  For me, it consisted of Skippy Natural Creamy Peanut Butter dregs, meticulously scraped from the hard-to-reach parts of the plastic jar with a small, worn, jagged-edged spatula, which was then redirected across a surface scattered with mini chocolate chips, picking them up metal-filings-to-magnet style. (Peanut butter and chocolate were always meant to be together anyways.)

Needless to say, several hours later we were still hungry and though I had finally OD’ed on peanut butter over the past few days, those chocolate chips roused a hearty sweet tooth in me.  Now the challenge at hand: bake something sweet and tasty using only the pantry’s dwindling supplies.

The raw baking ingredients inventory: almost a cup of rice flour, a couple cups of white sugar, a cup of brown sugar, cocoa, dry powdered milk, honey, instant mashed potato flakes (an amazing gluten-free flour substitute I’ll explain in another post), and about 2 tbsp left of mini chocolate chips remaining. Luckily we had a few eggs, some butter and almond milk available in the fridge and some common spices in the cupboard.

I also had some sweet potatoes I’ve been meaning to fix, but had postponed because Dad doesn’t like them.  However with the idea of warm, buttery sweet potatoes suddenly and firmly lodged in my mind, there was little he could do to prevent the use of our limited resources on this experiment.  While he relayed his doubts: “Sweet potatoes? I don’t knooooooow…”, I Googled “Sweet Potato Cookies”, browsed recipes and settled on this one.

I cut the recipe in half for a trial run and omitted the nuts, raisins, baking soda, allspice and flour (as I didn’t have any of those ingredients), instead substituting rice flour, instant mashed potato flakes, more baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg.

All told, the recipe came out like this:

Sweet Potato Cookies!

1/4 c butter
1/2 c brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 c mashed sweet potato
1/4 c instant mashed potato flakes
1 c rice flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/4 c almond milk
2 tbsp chocolate chips

Cream together all ingredients except milk and chocolate chips. Mix in milk a little at a time. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by the spoonful onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake in a 300 degree oven for 15 minutes or until brown.

I fixed half the dough with the chocolate chips:

and half without, dusted with cinnamon instead:

Though they lack that texture common to wheat flour-based cookies, it’s supplanted with a soft, spongy structure that I doubt I’ve ever encountered in a cookie before; it’s a springy treat! You can taste the sweet potato, but it emerges from the encompassing tastes quite a bit milder than that of just a baked sweet potato. Dad, The Sweet Tater Hater, really enjoyed them! They’re interesting, light and delicately delicious, plus they’re quick and easy to make so I’ll definitely be revisiting them. Like BeetLoaf, it’s a wonderfully sweet surprise from an unexpected vegetable source. Hope you enjoy!