Recently, my grandma went on a sweet potato buying spree and got us 3 bags of them: Japanese, red and purple. And it just so happens that we (namely my brother and I) dislike the purple sweet potatoes. We both love eating steamed sweet potatoes though (as snacks!), as long as it's not purple, due to its unpleasant earthy flavour and tendency to have tough stringy fibres.
So it wasn't long before we wiped out the Japanese and Red sweet potatoes, and was left with one full bag of the purples and then we started declaring, "we're out of sweet potatoes!" much to the chagrin of our mother, who would point to the full bag of purple sweet potatoes and say, "NEH!"
So I guess, it's entirely up to me to embark on this very important mission. The mission to finish up all that pesky purple sweet potatoes before we can get anymore Japanese ones. HAH!
But I REALLY dislike eating them, so I reckon the only way out is to.... bake something out of them? They did fairly well in the nian gao mochi balls but it's not the season for us to have ready made nian gao lying around in the house, yet. So, when is a better time than now to try out this super easy recipe from Cook Kafemaru?
And it's none other than the super quick and easy, 2 ingredient sweet potato cake!
For roughly 6 small slices, you'll need:
300g sweet potatoes
Vanilla Ice Cream
(amount greatly depend on moisture content of your sweet potatoes)
Optional:
egg yolk + water (for egg wash, omit if using purple SP)
black sesame/pumpkin seeds as toppings.
First, rinse your sweet potatoes clean. Peel the skin off and cut into thin slices or small cubes. Cook till soft by either steaming them in a steamer or using a microwave. I'll suggest you don't boil them, as it'll introduce a lot of unnecessary moisture into your sweet potato, and you'll end up being unable to add sufficient ice cream to the puree for a good flavour. As such, microwaving (or baking/roasting, if you have time to waste spend a good 30 to 40 minutes oven-baking your sweet potatoes) will probably give you the most flavourful cakes, as you'll be able to add in a lot more ice cream to your sweet potato as they'll be considerably dried out by the microwave.
So once your sweet potatoes are thoroughly cooked through (and soft), mash them up while they're still hot (as they'll be softer and easier to mash). Do spend a little bit more time mashing (or use a food processor like I did) if you're using the purple SP like me, as they tend to be a lot more fibrous. Mashing the Indonesian Honey SP will be a breeze, I'd tell you.
Anyway, once you're happy with how thoroughly mashed up your SP is, add in your vanilla ice cream and mix. As your SP should still be warm, it shouldn't be an issue if your ice cream is quite frozen (or you may wanna set your ice cream on the counter for a while for it to soften first). But make sure it's a GOOD QUALITY vanilla ice cream (or your favourite one) as this is THE ingredient that will make or break your SP cakes.
Add the ice cream in small amount, or you may start off with about 50g first and see how dry the batter turned out before adding more, spoon by spoon. Ultimately you should get a ball of dough that is like playdough, pliable and able to hold its shape and doesn't really get all mushy in your hands.
And then, it's time to start shaping them! You can either roll them up into small pingpong sized balls, or shape them into cute little cubes and top them with some sesame seeds or pumpkin seeds.
But I'm lazy, so I just press everything into a loaf pan and bake them off at 180 degree Celsius for about 25 minutes.
Do note that if you're baking them as bite sized balls or cubes, your baking time will be significantly shorter; otherwise you can follow Cook Kafemaru and bake them in a toaster oven for 7 - 8 minutes.
Tadaa~
I guess I could have still baked mine for another 5 minutes or so, as they turned out very fudgy/creamy. I do not really appreciate fudgy stuff unless they're brownies/chocolate. But it's still way better than having to eat steamed purple potatoes, that's for sure!
Till then,
Mia Foo
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