A few years ago I discovered absolutely amazing locally made sweet potato pudding cups at one of my favorite natural foods/health stores. Talk about childhood nostalgia! I was literally HOOKED after my first bite…and though I loved the chocolate and vanilla, I was obsessed with the mint chocolate. I reached out to the awesome kitchen wizard behind these wonderful creations and started placing personal orders. Each day I looked forward to a delicious treat I could actually eat…until one day she announced that she was closing up shop and heading to California.
After quite a few months passed with me longing for that sweet goodness, I decided it was time to try to recreate a little magic for myself! I scoured the internet to find a recipe I thought might come the closest to that silky decadence, all while staying true to being gluten-free, dairy-free, and refined sugar-free, of course. My intuition guided me well, and the first recipe I settled on pretty much created the SAME perfection that had originally blown my mind, with only a few adaptations. Happy tears moment!!! It’s the little things…especially in times like these (Pandemic, flare-ups, etc.). This delicious pudding is like a sweet, comforting hug on the inside. Pure joy, and the perfect Valentine’s Day treat for everyBODY!
Sweet Potato Pudding Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 medium/large or 3 small sweet potatoes – I use white so it looks like “real pudding,” but you can experiment with any kind
- 2-3 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and/or 1/2 a vanilla bean (scraped)
- 1/2 cup canned full fat coconut milk (shaken up so fats are well incorporated)
Instructions
- Bake the sweet potatoes (I set the oven to 400°, prick the sweet potatoes a few times with a fork and put them on a baking sheet and bake until tender – about 45-60 minutes, depending on size).
- Let the sweet potatoes cool for 20-30 minutes (you can cut them open to speed up the process a little), or until you can handle them comfortably (without burning yourself). Cut the sweet potatoes open (if you haven’t already) and scoop out the insides.
- Spoon the flesh into a blender or food processor and add the maple syrup, sea salt, vanilla, and coconut milk.
- Blend until the mixture is completely smooth and has a pudding-like texture. This usually requires scraping down the sides and concentrating the ingredients over blender blade (unless you have a very powerful machine) – add a little more coconut milk if necessary.
- To make different flavors:
- Reserve half of the mixture as plain vanilla.
- For chocolate: Add 1/8-1/4 cup of cacao powder to the other half of the batch still in the blender/food processor and blend until well incorporated.
- For Mint-Chocolate: Remove half of the chocolate batch (so 1/4 of the entire original batch), add a splash of peppermint extract, and blend (or, obviously you can make all of the chocolate half of the batch mint-chocolate…or the entire batch…whatever you like!) You can play around with your favorite tastes, amounts, add-ins, etc.
- Store in an airtight container, and keep in the refrigerator for up to one week.
(Adapted from a recipe by The Full Helping)