Baked Cinnamon Sugar Sweet Potato Tots | running with spoons (2024)
Crispy, tender, and loaded with a sweet cinnamon flavour, these baked sweet potato tots make a perfect gluten-free and vegan snack!
I’m pretty sure I didn’t have my first taste of sweet potatoes until I started reading blogs back in 2010. I grew up eating plenty of regular potatoes since my family is European and they were one of the few veggies I would actually eat as a child, but sweet potatoes were an oddity to me back in those days. Along with avocado, coconut, almond butter, quinoa, hummus, and 90% of the other things Inow eat.
In fact, my dietunderwent such a dramatic shift over the years that the old me wouldn’t even recognize the new me… and she’d probably turn her nose up at my current food choices as well. But that’s probably a good thing considering I went through a pretty long phase where my idea of a qualitymeal involved blue boxes andgolden arches.Mmm hmm. You know of what I speak. But I digress!
Sweet potatoes.
I honestly couldn’t tell you what my first experience with them was like (meaning I didn’t exactly have a Herbal Essences moment), but it must have been a good one considering I’ve kept themaround to this very day.
The only thing is that I usually eat my sweet potatoessweet. Like with maple syrup. And cinnamon. Usually a little bit almond butter thrown in there as well. I’ve never had the opportunity to try one of those sweet potato casseroles that are topped with toasted marshmallows, but I have a feeling I’d enjoy those as well. I mean, I may have walked away from the blue boxes and golden arches, but the sweet tooth in me will never die.Ever.Which is why it’s no surprise that I’d toss cinnamon and sugar into some tatertots…
I don’t really want to talk about this recipe and the huge headache that it gave me, but we’re going to anyways. Just for you.
The texture was the problem. I couldn’t get them to come out the way I wanted them to, and all my batches turned out either too crumbly or too wet. Sorry for the mental image — I had to go there.
The secret was a few spoonfuls of coconut flour — amagic little ingredient that solves all of life’s problems. Okay, not really. But it solved this one. Not only did it soakup the extra moisture and help these tots firm up, but it also added a subtle coconut flavour that pairs beautifully with the sweet potato and cinnamon.
I was originally going to use breadcrumbs in the coating, but decided to swap it out with almond meal for no other reason than the fact that I like to experimentand I wanted to see what I would end up with.
The result is a gluten-free sweet potato tot that’s tender on the inside and slightly crispy on the outside.The more dominant cinnamon flavour is accented perfectly by the subtler flavours of coconut and almond, with a slight touch of caramelfrom the coconut sugar. Can you tell I spent a lot of time with these tots? Mmm hmm.But basically, they’re sweet and cinnamony pillows of sweet potato goodness, and they may just be my newest obsession.Hope you love them too!
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1 lb. of sweet potatoes (approx. 2 large), peeled and cubed
2 tbsp. coconut flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup almond meal
1/2 – 1 Tbsp. coconut sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
Instructions
Bring a medium-sized pot of water to a boil. Add cubed sweet potatoes and boil for 15 minutes, until soft. Drain well and shake off any excess water.
Use a fork or potato masher to mash the sweet potatoes until no chunks remain. Add coconut flour and cinnamon, mixing well to ensure it is fully incorporated. Set aside.*
In a small bowl, prepare coating by combining almond meal, coconut sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
Preheat oven to 400F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Use a tablespoon to scoop out sweet potato mash and roll it between your hands to create a small cylindrical shape.** Transfer to the bowl that contains the coating, and roll it around to ensure that it’s evenly coated, pressing gently. Transfer to baking sheet and repeat with remaining mash.
Bake for 30-40 minutes, rotating at the halfway mark, until coating begins to turn golden brown and desired level of crispness is reached.
Notes
* This can be done ahead of time and stored in the fridge until needed. Mine came out to a little less than 1 1/2 cups mashed. ** You can really make them any shape you want, just make sure they’re all uniform in size to ensure that they cook evenly.
The cold water bath helps rinse the starch off the sweet potatoes so they're a bit more crispy. That said, if you do not have the time, you can still get crispy baked sweet potato fries by using high heat and a little drizzle of olive oil.
1 serving of baked sweet potato with butter and cinnamon sugar (Cracker Barrel) contains 350 Calories. The macronutrient breakdown is 63% carbs, 32% fat, and 5% protein. This is a good source of fiber (29% of your Daily Value).
Boiling sweet potatoes retains more beta-carotene and makes the nutrient more absorbable than other cooking methods such as baking or frying. Up to 92% of the nutrient can be retained by limiting the cook time, such as boiling in a pot with a tightly covered lid for 20 minutes.
Wrapping the sweet potatoes in foil ensures that they don't dry out too quickly, and allows you to add aromatics if desired. Unwrapping the sweet potatoes and increasing the oven temperature produces charred, roasted flavors and caramelizes converted sugars.
Why use salt water for soaking potatoes? There's moisture naturally found in potatoes, and moisture is drawn to higher concentrations of salt. (This is a process called osmosis.) So, if you put the potatoes in a salt water bath, that will help draw out some of their moisture, resulting in crispier fries.
Thankfully, they're one health food that actually lives up to the hype. If you're curious about the calories in a sweet potato: there are 103 in one, medium-sized sweet potato, according to the USDA. If you go for a large, you'll get 162 calories.
A medium-sized sweet potato (boiled without the skin) contains 27 grams of carbs. The main components are starches, which make up 53% of the carb content. Simple sugars, such as glucose, fructose, sucrose, and maltose, comprise 32% of the carb content ( 2 ).
Sweet potatoes have a lot of carbohydrates. One 5-inch sweet potato has about 26 grams of carbohydrates. In a low-carb diet, one sweet potato has half of the calories from carbohydrates that you may be allowed. But that's still less than the carb content of a white potato: 35 grams, on average.
If you enjoy sweet potatoes, you can absolutely enjoy them daily. However, eating multiple sweet potatoes every day could cause a harmless condition called carotenodermia, where your skin turns yellow-orange. You may also want to be cautious about your sweet potato intake if you have a history of kidney stones.
The healthiest ways to prepare sweet potatoes are to steam or boil them. You can also bake, roast, or fry sweet potatoes, but you should take care to limit these preparation methods, which will cause the sugars to break down in different ways and often include extra recipe ingredients like oil, butter, or sugar.
The primary nutritional benefit, and the one for which Okinawan sweet potatoes are especially prized, is their high antioxidant levels. The antioxidant known as anthocyanin is the pigment which is responsible for the brilliant purple color of the flesh.
Do you have to poke holes in sweet potatoes before baking? Typically holes are poked into a sweet potato to prevent a potato exploding in your oven. However, the chance of that happening is low, and according to Lifehacker, sweet potatoes will retain more flavor if you don't poke them.
They're dirty! Washing the sweet potatoes not only eliminates actual particles of dirt, but it also introduces some moisture to the skin, which prevents it from turning tough or leathery in the high heat of the oven.
Preheat the oven to 425°F and place a piece of foil on a baking sheet. Use a fork to poke holes into the sweet potatoes, set them on the baking sheet, and roast for 40 to 50 minutes, or until puffed up and soft inside when pierced with a fork.
No, there is no need to soak sweet potatoes before roasting. What temperature should I bake my sweet potatoes? Bake sweet potatoes at a high temperature. We find that anything between 400°F and 450°F works well.
Transfer to a bowl filled with ice and water and let it soak for 30 minutes. The cold water helps with removing excess starch and crisping up the potatoes later.
The reason is to prevent the potatoes exposure to air, which causes dehydration, oxidation, and discoloration. Immersing cut potatoes will also help rinse off excess starch.
To remove excess starch, place cut sweet potatoes into cold water making sure the cut surfaces are submerged. This step is especially recommended for "kinton" (Japanese-style mashed sweet potato) and other lightly seasoned dishes where a delectable color is desired. Soaking time of about 5 minutes is sufficient.
Introduction: My name is Annamae Dooley, I am a witty, quaint, lovely, clever, rich, sparkling, powerful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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