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Praline Sweet Potatoes with Toasted Marshmallows

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This gluten free dish is so rich and sweet with creamy, puffy marshmallows, crispy pecans, and buttery brown sugar you could add it to the dessert table. But hey, this is Thanksgiving! The meal where we all throw caution to the winds and eat whatever we want for one meal! Here's one time where you can have your dessert with your dinner, and then have even more dessert for dessert!  So now the real value of sweet potatoes comes into play - since it can be justified as a side dish and dessert, I say run with it!

Praline Sweet Potato casserole

I never used to like sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving when I was a kid. I was confused - was it a dessert because it was sweet, or was it a side dish because it was a potato? Whatever it was meant to be, I was suspicious of it as a kid, so I generally avoided it at all costs. But that was before I found this amazing recipe in a magazine about 25 years ago that opened my eyes to adding a buttery, crunchy streusel topping and most delicious of all - TOASTED marshmallows. I have altered it many times over the years to make it gluten free and suit our family's tastes a little better.

The only time I ever make this recipe is just once a year, for Thanksgiving. It is a family tradition, and candied yams or sweet potatoes along with our Thanksgiving turkey is an American tradition.

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Praline sweet potato with fork

What Makes These Sweet Potatoes the Best

  •  Base: This dish has a base of sweet potatoes (which are actually yams), and is enhanced with egg, milk, sugar, and a little orange juice to brighten the flavor.
  • Topping: The streusel/praline topping is made of pecans, brown sugar, butter, and flour. I use my Basic Brown Rice Flour Blend so it's gluten free
  • Bonus topping: toasted marshmallows! For extra fun, and creamy stretchy goodness 😀

Keep scrolling for the recipe! ⤵️

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sweet potato casserole base

Sweet Potato Base

  • peeled and cubed raw yams/ sweet potatoes
  •  eggs
  •  milk, your choice - you can even use  non-dairy milk
  • white  sugar
  •  melted butter (see Substitutions below)
  •   orange juice
sweet potato topping

Praline Streusel Topping

  • chopped pecans
  •  brown sugar
  • Gluten free  flour (or regular flour- both work fine in this recipe)
  •  cold butter (see Substitutions below)
  •  miniature marshmallows

Substitutions

If you need this to be dairy free, use Earth Balance Buttery Spread in place of the butter.

Nearly any type of gluten free flour or flour blend can work in this recipe, if you have any sensitivities to certain grains or starches. Below I will list some of the gluten free flour blends that I’ve tried that work well in this recipe.

For the cream you can substitute, half and half, or milk of nearly any type - even non-dairy milk.

Your gluten free Thanksgiving menu wouldn’t be complete without pecan pie (and ours is chocolate!)

Here's How You Make It

step 1. boil sweet potatoes

Step 1. Boil sweet potatoes until tender.

step 2. mash

Step 2. Drain water and mash. 

step 3. add eggs, cream

Step 3. Add cream, eggs, melted butter, juice, sugar. 

step 4. combine topping

Step 4. Combine pecans, brown sugar, flour

step 5. cut in butter

Step 5. Cut in cold butter

step 6. add topping

Step 6. Spoon topping over sweet potatoes in casserole dish

step 7. add marshmallows

Step 7. After baking, add marshmallows.

step 8. broil

Step 8. Broil until marshmallows are lightly toasted

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Praline Sweet Potatoes with Toasted Marshmallows

Praline Sweet Potatoes with Toasted Marshmallows

Print Recipe

This gluten free dish is so rich and sweet with creamy, puffy marshmallows, crispy pecans, and buttery brown sugar you could get away with adding it to the dessert table!

  • Total Time: 60 minutes
  • Yield: 6 -8 1x

Ingredients

Units Scale
  • 8-9 cups peeled and cubed raw yams or sweet potatoes
  • 2 large eggs
  • ½ cup cream, or milk
  • ⅔ cup sugar
  • 3 tablespoons melted butter
  • ¼ cup orange juice
  • ¾ cup chopped pecans
  • ⅔ cup brown sugar
  • ½ cup flour (regular or gluten free - both work fine in this recipe)
  • ¼ cup cold butter
  • 2 cups of miniature marshmallows

Instructions

 

  1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and add the cubed sweet potatoes.
  2. Cook until soft and tender, about 10 - 15 minutes.
  3. Drain water and mash, either by hand or in a mixer.
  4. Add the eggs, milk, sugar, 3 tablespoons melted butter, and orange juice. Mix until combined.
  5. Spoon into a buttered casserole dish.
  6. Meanwhile, make the praline topping by combining the pecans, brown sugar, and flour in a medium sized bowl.
  7. Cut in the cold butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs or gravel.
  8. Spoon over the top of the sweet potatoes in the dish or dishes.
  9. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes, depending on the size of your dish(es).
  10. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with marshmallows.
  11. Change your oven to the Broil setting.
  12. Return the casserole to the oven ( keep on the center rack) and broil for a  quick minute, or just until the marshmallows puff up and get lightly browned.

 

Notes

If you need this to be dairy free, use Earth Balance Buttery Spread in place of the butter.

Nearly any type of gluten free flour or flour blend can work in this recipe, if you have any sensitivities to certain grains or starches. Below I will list some of the gluten free flour blends that I’ve tried that work well in this recipe.

For the cream, you can substitute half and half, or milk of any type- even non-dairy milk.

  • Author: Beneficial Bento
  • Prep Time: 30 minutes
  • Cook Time: 30 minutes
  • Category: Side Dish

Helpful tips

  • This recipe can easily be made gluten free, or for wheat-eaters simply by what kind of flour you use in the praline topping. Nearly any kind of flour will work.
  • When you toast the marshmallows WATCH CAREFULLY! It only takes a second to burn. I know because I do this about every other year!
  • Bonus tip: You can easily peel off the burnt marshmallows and start again with fresh marshmallows. Trust me - as I said, I do that about every other year, to the great amusement of my family 🙂

Instructions for my Gluten Free Flour Blends

Get the instructions for making my Gluten Free Brown Rice Flour blend and other helpful information on gluten free baking in my free PDF, Gluten Free Baking for Beginners

Get Gluten Free Baking for Beginners ebook

Other Yummy Side Dishes

Comments

  1. Praline Pete TiffenSmite says

    Cheerio Mate(a)
    I so did enjoy your post today. When I was a child living in an orphanage, Oliver!, myself and the other orphans would consume large quantities of mush. Mrs Havisham told us that mush would be our sole source of nutrients until we died or left at the age of consent. The only thing that kept me alive during those trying times would be imagining (making believe if you will) that instead of much I was eating Praline infused yamies (as we called them) covered with marshmallows (we called them swamp mallows, we WERE orphans after all). Anyway as my fellow orphan friends were trying to consume the wretched mush and trying not to toss one's cookies, I on the other hand would moan in delight at the pretend yamies I was eating. Annie, Huck, Pip, Oliver, Artful Dodger and Harry said to me, Hey Praline Pete, why do you enjoy the mush so much? We hate it and want to loose our biscuits. I just smiled and calmly said Yamies people, Yamies.

    • beneficialbento says

      Pete,
      I didn't know you had such a rough start in life. I'm so glad you rose above all that and have become the man you are today, Praline Pete TiffenSmite 🙂