Sweet potatoes are a holiday classic, so I was pleased to find a hundred-year-old recipe for Glazed Sweet Potatoes. The sweet potatoes are glazed with a sugar sauce and baked until tender. The glaze is made with white sugar (not the brown sugar or maple syrup that is more typically used today). The Glazed Sweet Potatoes were tender and sweet, but they were not immersed in a thick sauce – rather (as the recipe title says) they had a sugar glaze.
Here’s the original recipe:
The old recipe called for boiling the sweet potatoes for 10 minutes to make it easy to slip the skins off them, however, the skins didn’t come off very easily. I don’t think that they were boiled for quite long enough, so when I updated the recipe, I indicated that they should be boiled by 15 minutes.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
Glazed Sweet Potatoes
6 medium sweet potatoes
1 teaspoon salt
water
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
Wash sweet potatoes and then place in a Dutch oven or other large pan. Cover with water and add the salt to the water; bring to a boil using high heat. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool enough to handle. Remove skins from the sweet potatoes. They should slip off easily. Then cut the sweet potatoes in half lengthwise and arrange in a large rectangular casserole dish.
In the meantime, preheat oven to 375° F. And, make the sauce that will be used to glaze the sweet potatoes by putting the sugar and water in a saucepan; stir. Using medium heat, bring to a boil while continuing to stir. Boil for 3 minutes then remove from heat and stir butter into the sauce.
Using a basting brush, spread sugar syrup on the arranged sweet potato halves. Put in oven and bake until tender and the syrup begins to brown (about 30 – 40 minutes). While baking, baste several times with the syrup.
A Hundred Years Ago 
That is interesting and different.
I also thought that this was a unique recipe for glazing sweet potatoes. I never would have thought of using white sugar.
Here’s something you’d never find in an older British cookery book. We never had sweet potatoes at all until the last few years.
I think that we’ve discovered another (at least historic) difference in the foods across our two countries.
Indeed! And it makes life more interesting.
I’m going for this glaze. There will be plenty of a sauces to go around and this SP will be worth more in its great nutrition, in this simplicity.
I do like that this recipe doesn’t bury the sweet potatoes in a sugary sauce.
That’s a lot of sweet!
Sweet potatoes have a nice flavor. Why do most sweet potato recipes contain sugar? There are the brown sugar and maple syrup sauce recipes, the sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows recipes, and this sugar glaze recipe. I think that sweet potatoes could stand alone without the sugar.
I know! It’s strange isn’t it? I’d be more tempted to sprinkle a little cider vinegar, or add some heat!
I may have to experiment with sweet potatoes. I think that my daughter made a dish awhile back that was a mixture of cubed sweet potatoes, white beans, and some spices. It was tasty.
Sounds good! I’ve been looking for something different to put with my beans, maybe I’ll give it a try!
This sounds like what my MIL makes… And they are very tasty!!
It’s nice to hear that this recipe is similar to what your mother in law makes.
Yes, very different with the white sugar!
This recipe is a nice change of pace – though everyone is so used to the brown sugar sauce on sweet potatoes that, while this recipe is good, the resulting dish will seem different when served.
I am not a great fan of sweet dishes but I do have glazed sweet potatoes at times!! Sweet potatoes have a lot of medicinal benefits as it has a lot of antioxidants and helps us to boost our immune system. Well, thanx for sharing this classic recipe with us! Don’t forget to go through my articles as well and drop in your valuable feedbacks.
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