Huge Sweet Potato Casserole
Prep
25m
Cook
75m
Total
100m
Bigly says
Listen to me. Sweet potato casserole. The dessert that PRETENDS to be a side dish. The Trojan horse of the Thanksgiving table — and I'm here to tell you, hand on heart, it is BETTER than half the so-called desserts crowding the dessert table. It's just a fact. The pumpkin pie that's been sitting out developing a soggy crust? Sad. The store-bought pecan pie with the corn syrup that tastes like a brick of melted Halloween candy? Disgrace. Sweet potato casserole, with the brown sugar pecan crunch on top, walks into that room and TAKES OVER. End of discussion.
And I'll address the controversy directly, because I'm not afraid of controversy, I LIVE for controversy: marshmallows or pecans. The great debate. Civil war level stuff. Families have split. Marriages have ended over this — I'm not exaggerating, I had a guy tell me, big strong man, tough guy, he said 'Bigly, my aunt hasn't spoken to my uncle in fourteen years over the marshmallow question,' and I said, 'Sir, your family needs MY casserole.' Because the answer is BOTH. Both. You build a brown sugar pecan streusel for the crunch, and you put toasted marshmallows ON TOP of the pecan layer for the kids and the grown adults who refuse to act their age — which is most of us, let's be honest. Greatest of both worlds. Why have we ever been choosing. I am not a coward. I give you everything.
The secret — and the so-called food experts won't tell you this, because they're too busy writing 4,000-word essays about how their grandmother moved to Provence — is you ROAST the sweet potatoes. You do NOT boil them. Boiling sweet potatoes is how you make sweet potato SOUP. Roasting them concentrates the sugar, deepens the flavor, makes them taste like dessert before you even add sugar. My grandmother taught me this. She was a tough woman, she did not negotiate with vegetables. People come up to me, they say 'Bigly, the sweet potatoes, what did you do, they taste like CARAMEL' — I say, that's not me, that's the oven, the oven did the work, give the oven credit. The oven earned it.
Ingredients
- 4 lbsweet potatoes (about 4 large)
- 6 tbspunsalted butter(for the filling, browned)
- 1/3 cuplight brown sugar (packed)(for the filling)
- 2large eggs
- 1/2 cupheavy cream
- 2 tspvanilla extract(real vanilla, the imitation stuff is a scam)
- 1 tspground cinnamon
- 1/4 tspfreshly grated nutmeg
- 1 tspkosher salt
- 1.5 cupspecans, roughly chopped
- 1/2 cuplight brown sugar (packed)(for the topping)
- 1/3 cupall-purpose flour(for the topping)
- 5 tbspunsalted butter, melted(for the topping)
- 1/4 tspkosher salt(for the topping)
- 2 cupsmini marshmallows
Steps
- 1
Preheat the oven to 400°F (205°C). Prick the sweet potatoes all over with a fork and place them on a foil-lined sheet pan. Roast 60-75 minutes, until completely soft and the skins are starting to caramelize and weep a little syrup onto the foil. That syrup is the good stuff — that's why we roast.
- 2
While the potatoes roast, make the brown butter. Melt the 6 tbsp butter in a small saucepan over medium heat, swirling occasionally. Continue cooking 4-6 minutes after melted, until the milk solids at the bottom are deeply golden brown and the butter smells nutty. Pour into a small bowl, including the browned bits, and set aside.
- 3
Let the potatoes cool just until you can handle them. Slit them open and scoop the flesh into a large bowl. Discard the skins.
- 4
Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (175°C). Butter a 9x13-inch baking dish.
- 5
Mash the sweet potatoes with a potato masher until smooth (a few lumps are fine). Add the brown butter, 1/3 cup brown sugar, eggs, cream, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and 1 tsp salt. Stir or whisk until completely combined and silky.
- 6
Spread the sweet potato mixture evenly into the prepared baking dish.
- 7
Make the pecan topping: combine pecans, 1/2 cup brown sugar, flour, melted butter, and 1/4 tsp salt in a bowl. Stir until clumpy and evenly coated.
- 8
Sprinkle the pecan mixture in an even layer over the sweet potatoes, leaving about an inch of bare sweet potato around the edges so the marshmallows can find their place later.
- 9
Bake 25-30 minutes, until the pecan topping is golden and the filling is set and gently bubbling at the edges.
- 10
Switch the oven to broil. Scatter the mini marshmallows over the pecan topping. Broil 1-3 minutes, watching like a hawk — marshmallows go from golden to incinerated in seconds. Pull when they are puffed and toasted golden brown.
- 11
Let rest 10 minutes before serving.
One more thing
And there it is. The huge sweet potato casserole. The peace treaty. The end of the marshmallow-versus-pecan war that has divided American families for generations. Everybody wins. Everybody eats. Everybody comes back for seconds and pretends they're 'just trying a little more' when in fact they have eaten approximately a pound and a half of sweet potato casserole and they don't care. They shouldn't care. Life is short and the casserole is huge. Make it. Serve it. Receive the applause. Tremendous.
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