Sweet Potato Casserole with Marshmallows
Sweet potatoes cooked down in butter and cream instead of water, mashed with a little cream cheese, then covered with halved marshmallows and baked in a hot oven until they puff and brown.
Sweetened sweet potatoes are old in America: Mental Floss notes a sugared potato pudding in Amelia Simmons's "American Cookery" (1796) and candied sweet potatoes in the 1896 "Boston Cooking School Cookbook" (Michele Debczak, November 11, 2022:). The marshmallow topping is usually credited to a sales pitch. Angelus Marshmallows hired Janet McKenzie Hill, founder of the Boston Cooking School Magazine, to write a 1917 recipe booklet that would make marshmallows an everyday ingredient, and Mental Floss quotes Saveur calling its mashed sweet potatoes baked under marshmallows the earliest known recipe of its kind. The booklet is DISPUTED as a source: food historian Sarah Lohman could not find a copy, and the earliest version she found was in a 1918 trade journal, "Sweet Potatoes and Yams" (Four Pounds Flour, November 25, 2013:). Either way, it was the candy industry that put marshmallows on the Thanksgiving table.
🇺🇸 This one is American
Sweet potatoes cooked down in butter and cream instead of water, mashed with a little cream cheese, then covered with halved marshmallows and baked in a hot oven until they puff and brown.
🇮🇪 The original
Ireland's colcannon is floury potatoes mashed with butter and milk and folded with cooked cabbage or kale, a well of melted butter in the middle. See the Irish Colcannon recipe.
Why it works the kitchen science
No boiling water
Cooking the sweet potatoes in butter and cream concentrates their flavor; ATK found boiling made the casserole watery and roasting took too long.
Halved marshmallows in a hot oven
A single layer of cut marshmallows browns in about 5 minutes at 450°F, before the potatoes underneath dry out.
Step by step
- Step 1
Put the sweet potatoes, cream, butter, sugar, salt and pepper in a Dutch oven. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring now and then, 20 to 25 minutes, until the potatoes begin to break down.
- Step 2
Lower the heat to medium-low and cook, covered, 15 to 20 minutes more, until the liquid is absorbed and the potatoes are completely tender. Meanwhile, set an oven rack in the upper-middle position and heat the oven to 450°F.
- Step 3
Add the cream cheese and mash until smooth (use a hand mixer for a silkier texture).
- Step 4
Cook, stirring constantly, about 5 minutes, until the mixture thickens.
- Step 5
Spread it in a 2-quart baking dish and cover the top with the marshmallow halves, cut side down, in a single layer.
- Step 6
Bake about 5 minutes, until the marshmallows are puffed and browned; watch closely, they burn fast. Serve.
Sweet Potato Casserole with Marshmallows
Serves 8 · one 2-quart casserole · 1 hr 15 min total
Sweet potatoes
- 5 lb sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
- 6 tbsp heavy cream
- 6 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp table salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 2 oz cream cheese
Topping
- 1 (10-oz) bag regular marshmallows, halved crosswise
Method
- Put the sweet potatoes, cream, butter, sugar, salt and pepper in a Dutch oven. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring now and then, 20 to 25 minutes, until the potatoes begin to break down.
- Lower the heat to medium-low and cook, covered, 15 to 20 minutes more, until the liquid is absorbed and the potatoes are completely tender. Meanwhile, set an oven rack in the upper-middle position and heat the oven to 450°F.
- Add the cream cheese and mash until smooth (use a hand mixer for a silkier texture).
- Cook, stirring constantly, about 5 minutes, until the mixture thickens.
- Spread it in a 2-quart baking dish and cover the top with the marshmallow halves, cut side down, in a single layer.
- Bake about 5 minutes, until the marshmallows are puffed and browned; watch closely, they burn fast. Serve.
Adapted from Cook's Country (America's Test Kitchen), "Sweet Potato Casserole with Marshmallow Topping" by Lynn Clark (November 8, 2011), as written, with 8 servings from its "8 to 10". America's Test Kitchen. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
All sources (3)
Tips
- Make ahead: refrigerate the mashed potatoes up to 2 days, microwave 4 to 7 minutes until warm, then top and bake (ATK).
- ATK left out cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger so the dish tastes like a side, not a dessert; add them if your family expects them.
- Unlike white potatoes, sweet potatoes do not turn gluey with a mixer, which is why ATK allows one here.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- The 1917 Angelus booklet invented it. Disputed: Saveur (via Mental Floss) and Smithsonian (via search summary) credit the 1917 booklet; Sarah Lohman could not find a copy and found a 1918 trade journal recipe; one search summary mentions a 1916 cookbook.
- Angelus was the first to mass-produce marshmallows. Disputed: Mental Floss says so; a Vice Munchies article (search summary) ties Angelus to the Rueckheim brothers of Cracker Jack and says mass-made marshmallows reached Americans in 1907. Do not claim "first".
- They are yams. Folklore: Wikipedia's sweet potato article says the soft orange sweet potato is often called a yam in North America but is botanically unrelated to true yams.
- Marshmallow or pecan topping. Folklore: a family argument, not a documented regional rule.
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