Sweet Potato Balls

A Weird Recipe

As I mentioned in this post, there were two recipes for yam/sweet potato casseroles in Grandma's box. The ingredients for the two dishes were similar, but the methods couldn't have been more different. In fact, this one was plain strange. I waffled for a year over whether to test this recipe or put it in the small pile of those I didn't care to make. Yes, I did have a pile like that--fruit cocktail and mayonnaise, anyone?--and a recipe that instructed me to form balls out of mashed sweet potatoes seemed like it there. However, as weird as the method was, the combination of ingredients seemed palatable, so I decided to go ahead with a test. 

How to make Sweet Potato Balls

The first order of business was to cook the sweet potatoes. Since I was making both recipes for sweet potato/yam dishes, I decided to make half a batch of each. I placed the sweet potatoes/yams on a cookie sheet and baked them until they were soft and oozing.  

I then peeled them, mashed them up, and separated the mash into two different bowls. Half a recipe of Sweet Potato Balls amounted to 1 1/2 cups. 

Next, I added soft butter and brown sugar. 

I beat that together, then pulled out my juicer for the next step. 

I only needed one tablespoon of orange juice for my half batch, so that went into the mixture along with the salt and a small amount of zest. 

Those steps were pretty straightforward. Here was where the weirdness began. I lined up the sweet potato mixture, marshmallows, crushed cornflakes, and the greased baking dish into a sort of assembly line. 

I then handed the camera to a helper and donned my gloves. Things were about to get messy. 

As directed, I scooped up a quarter cup of the sweet potatoes, grabbed a marshmallow in the other hand, and began covering the marshmallow. I did need to add a little more of the sweet potatoes to ensure that the marshmallow was completely encased. 

I then rolled the ball in the crushed Cornflakes and placed it in the baking dish. 

Ta da! One down, three more to go. (Remember, this was a half batch of the recipe.) I got back to work.

It wasn't the most attractive dish I'd ever made, not that I'm good at that sort of thing. And it was kind of a pain. By the end of the process, I began to think this dish would really have to taste good to make it worth the effort. 

I had to wait to find out, though. Dinner wouldn't be ready for a few hours yet, so I covered the dish and stuck it in the fridge until baking time arrived.  

Both sweet potato/yam dishes went into the oven at once. Grandma's recipe said that I would know it was done when the marshmallows began to ooze. At 25 minutes, I took a peek, but no oozing was happening. Finally, at 40 minutes, I took it out of the oven, and it looked like this. 

No oozing. In fact, it didn't look very different from when it went in, but the sweet potatoes seemed set, and the Cornflakes had crisped up. I made a tentative dig into one of the balls to see what the marshmallow was doing, and lo and behold, it was gone.

The Verdict on Sweet Potato Balls

Always a lover of a good mystery, I couldn't wait to dig into this dish and see if I could find the marshmallows. They couldn't have disappeared into thin air, and why hadn't they oozed? 

However, the first thing that struck me when I took a bite was not a marshmallow flavor but an intense burst of orange. 

What? I hadn't put that much in. I tasted my helping of Sweet Potato Balls again . . . and again. By then, I was detecting the sweetness of the marshmallow and the way it had infused into the surrounding sweet potato, thickening it, candying it, and transforming it into such fudgy goodness that I couldn't stop.

The Cornflakes had added some crunch to the outside, and one of my daughters said that, for her, that set this dish apart and made it her favorite of the two dishes. Another daughter didn't love how strong the orange was, but I did. I really did.    

In other words, yes, Sweet Potato Balls really are worth the effort. In fact, considering the way the marshmallow disappeared, I might even call them magical.