Spiced sweet potato stacks

An easy, elegant way to serve up nutritious sweet potatoes!

I love sweet potatoes. Not only are they delicious and super nutritious, but they add a gorgeous pop of colour to any plate. I love this recipe for oven baked sweet potato fries, but recently I decided that I wanted to come up with a dish that was just a bit more elegant for dinner parties. These stacks are easy to make and look so pretty when served. When choosing sweet potatoes for this dish, try to find long slender ones so the slices fit easily into the muffin tin compartments. Note that you can prepare the dish a few hours ahead of time and bake it just before serving.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup (60 mL) butter, divided
• 2 tablespoons (30 mL) honey or maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons (30 mL) orange juice
• 1/4 teaspoon (1.25 mL) dried thyme leaves
• 1/4 teaspoon (1.25 mL) ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon (1.25 mL) salt
• 1/8 teaspoon (.6 mL )freshly ground pepper
• 2 medium-sized sweet potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup (125 mL) heavy cream

Method

• Preheat oven to 400F.
• Peel and thinly slice the sweet potatoes. Set aside.
• Put 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of the butter in a large microwave-safe bowl and set aside.
• With the remaining butter, generously grease 8 compartments of a muffin pan. Depending upon the size of your potatoes, you may need a few more compartments, but hold off on greasing those until you know for certain.
• Heat the butter that’s in the large bowl in the microwave over low to medium power until just melted.
• Add the honey, orange juice, thyme, cinnamon, salt and pepper; stir to combine.
• Add the sweet potato slices to the bowl and toss with the butter mixture. It’s easiest to do this with your fingers so you can be sure each slice gets coated on both sides.
• Layer the coated sweet potato slices in the muffin pan, using about 8 – 10 slices per compartment. You want each stack to extend just above the rim of the muffin pan.
• Drizzle about a tablespoon of heavy cream over each stack and put the pan in the preheated oven.

• Bake for 20 – 25 minutes until the potatoes are tender (check by poking into the middle of a stack with the tip of a sharp knife.
• Remove the stacks from the muffin pan using a fork or small spatula, spooning any sauce left in the pan over the stacks. Serve hot.

Makes 8 – 10 stacks; plan on serving two or three per person. Recipe can easily be doubled or tripled.