Sweet Potato Pancakes
Tall, tender sweet potato pancakes with a fine orange crumb, spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg and cooked low and slow so the middle sets before the face browns.
Servings 4 servings
Ingredients
Dry
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour spooned and leveled
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon fine salt
Wet
- 1 cup mashed roasted sweet potato cooled
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 cup whole milk plus more as needed
- 3 tablespoon melted butter plus more for the pan
- 2 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Prepare the Sweet Potato
- Bake whole sweet potatoes at 400F for 45 to 55 minutes until they slump and leak syrup. Cool, scoop out the flesh and mash it smooth with a fork. Measure 1 cup. Do not boil them, boiled flesh is waterlogged and throws the batter off.
Make the Batter
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt together in a large bowl.
- In a second bowl whisk the mashed sweet potato with the eggs, brown sugar, melted butter, vanilla and about three quarters of the milk until smooth.
- Pour the wet into the dry and fold with a spatula until it just comes together. Lumps are fine, overmixing makes them rubbery.
- Set the thickness: add the remaining milk one tablespoon at a time until the batter falls off the spoon in a thick slow ribbon and mounds slightly before it spreads. If it is too loose, add flour two tablespoons at a time.
- Rest the batter 10 minutes.
Cook
- Melt butter in a skillet over medium low heat. This is lower than you would cook a plain pancake, because the sugar in the sweet potato browns fast.
- Cook ¼ cup scoops for 3 to 4 minutes, until bubbles open across the whole surface and stay open, then flip once and cook 2 minutes more.
- Hold the finished pancakes on a rack in a 200F oven rather than stacking them, and serve with butter first and maple syrup after.
Notes
- Thickness over measurement: sweet potato mash varies in water content, so add the last of the milk by the tablespoon until the batter falls in a thick slow ribbon.
- Cook a test pancake: three minutes that tells you whether to add flour or milk.
- Medium low heat: the sugar in the mash browns before the middle sets. A pale pan is the right pan here.
- ¼ cup scoops: larger pancakes stay wet in the center.
- Do not stack them hot: hold them on a rack in a 200F oven so the faces stay browned.
- Freezing: 2 months with parchment between them. Reheat in a toaster or a dry skillet, never the microwave.