Sweet potato pudding

Ingredients

The base

• 1.5 kgsweet potato
• white Jamaican if possible
• peeled and finely grated
• 300 gyam or cassava, grated
• optional

The liquid

• 800 mlcoconut milk
• thick
• 200 gsoft brown sugar
• or to taste
• 100 graisins
• soaked in a little rum

The spices

• 2 teaspoonsground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoongrated nutmeg
• 1 teaspoonground ginger
• half a teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 teaspoonvanilla
• a pinch of salt

The rest

• 80 gplain flour
• 60 gbutter, melted
• extra coconut milk
• for the custard top
• plus 2 tablespoons sugar

Directions

1. Reduce the coconut milk slightly if using it. Grate it finely rather than coarsely. Fine gratings merge into a smooth batter. Use the fine side of a box grater. Grating a kilo and a half takes real time. Soak the raisins in water or juice instead. Peel the sweet potato and any yam or cassava.
2. Peel them with a knife rather than a peeler. Cut away any dark or damaged parts. Then rinse them and pat them dry. Grate the roots finely into a large bowl. Use the fine side of a box grater. Grate directly into the bowl to catch the juice.
3. Work reasonably quickly to limit it. Stir the coconut milk into the grated root. Add it gradually rather than all at once. Stir it thoroughly through the gratings. It should be a thick pourable batter. Add a little more if it seems too stiff.
4. Stir the brown sugar into the mixture. Soft brown sugar gives colour and depth. Stir in the cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and allspice. The spicing should be clearly noticeable. Grate the nutmeg fresh if you can. Stir the flour into the batter thoroughly. It binds the pudding and helps it set.
5. Sift it in to avoid any lumps. Stir until no dry flour remains visible. Do not overwork it beyond that. Stir in the butter, vanilla, salt and raisins. Add the raisins with their soaking liquid.
6. Stir everything through thoroughly. The batter should be entirely uniform. Grease a deep baking tin thoroughly. Use a deep tin rather than a shallow one. The pudding should be at least five centimetres deep. Grease it generously with butter. Line the base with paper as well. Pour the batter in and bake it slowly. About one hundred and seventy degrees works well.
7. Pour extra coconut milk over after an hour. Take the tin out after about an hour. The surface should be set by then. Pour the sweetened coconut milk over it. Then return it for the last half hour. Use about two hundred millilitres for that top.
8. Pour it gently over the whole surface. It should sit as a layer rather than sink in. Cover the top with foil if it browns too fast. Let the pudding cool completely in the tin. Cutting it warm gives a collapsing mess. Cut the cooled pudding into squares.
9. Use a sharp knife and cut cleanly downward. Squares of about six centimetres are usual. Lift them out with a palette knife. It is not usually served warm at all.

Technique

• Jamaican sweet potato is usually white fleshed, drier and starchier than the orange kind and sometimes sold as boniato, and that difference genuinely matters: white gives the dense set texture this pudding should have, where orange is much wetter and sweeter and gives a softer looser result. Reduce the coconut milk slightly if using orange; the pudding will still be good, and the atlas records that difference honestly.
• Let it cool completely in the tin, at least three hours and better overnight — the starch continues setting as it cools and it goes from soft to genuinely dense. Cutting it warm gives a collapsing mess.
• The commonest fault is an underbaked centre that stays wet and pasty. Give it longer rather than taking it out early, covering the top with foil if it browns too fast. If you soak the raisins in rum, some bakes off but not all — say clearly it is there, or soak them in water or juice instead.

Substitutions

• Grated yam or cassava replaces part of the sweet potato in many versions. Cassava must be peeled thoroughly, since the skin carries cyanogenic compounds, and the long baking destroys them entirely.
• Dark brown sugar replaces soft brown for a richer flavour; white sugar gives a paler flatter result. A food processor grating disc replaces hand grating and is a genuinely reasonable shortcut that many Jamaican kitchens use now.

Variations

• The root is grated rather than mashed or puréed, and that grated texture is what gives the pudding its particular density — grate it finely, since coarse gratings stay visible and stringy, and grate directly into the bowl to catch the juice.
• Pour the sweetened extra coconut milk over after about an hour of baking, once the surface has set, then return it for the last half hour. Added at the start it simply mixes in and added at the end it does not set — partway through gives the soft paler custard top that is the sign of a properly made pudding.
• The dutch pot method that gives the saying — hell a top, hell a bottom, hallelujah in the middle — heaped coals on the lid as well as underneath, baking like an oven without one. Most households now use an oven for essentially the same result, though the dutch pot is still used; both are genuinely done.

History

Traditionally baked in a dutch pot with coals above and below, giving the saying hell a top, hell a bottom, hallelujah in the middle.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sweet potato pudding?

Sweet potato pudding is a dessert from Jamaica: dense baked pudding of sweet potato, coconut, spice. Traditionally baked in a dutch pot with coals above and below, giving the saying hell a top, hell a bottom, hallelujah in the middle.

How long does Sweet potato pudding take to make?

Sweet potato pudding takes 40 minutes of preparation and 1 hour 30 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes serves 10. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Sweet potato pudding?

Yes, within limits. Grated yam or cassava replaces part of the sweet potato in many versions. Cassava must be peeled thoroughly, since the skin carries cyanogenic compounds, and the long baking destroys them entirely. Dark brown sugar replaces soft brown for a richer flavour; white sugar gives a paler flatter result. A food processor grating disc replaces hand grating and is a genuinely reasonable shortcut that many Jamaican kitchens use now.

What is the most important thing to get right in Sweet potato pudding?

Reduce the coconut milk slightly if using it. Grate it finely rather than coarsely. Fine gratings merge into a smooth batter. Use the fine side of a box grater. Grating a kilo and a half takes real time. Soak the raisins in water or juice instead. Peel the sweet potato and any yam or cassava.