There are only two days of school left before fall break. I have to keep reminding myself of this, but I promise you those two days are going to be the longest of my life. They’re also kind of pointless. I will have one of each class, and I’m fairly certain that in at least half of them it’s just a work day, or a clean out day, or a movie day. You see, these are all things I could do from the comfort of my own home.
But it is only two days. And after that I have five whole days of freedom! I plan to get a lot of work done on my holiday recipes because I have fallen a little behind. But I usually do this time of year because there is just so much going on.
Ok but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Thanksgiving is in three days! I love love love Thanksgiving. I really do love to eat the food, but if you know me than you know what I love the most is making the food. Is it a lot of work? Yes. Do I usually cry? At least a little. But that’s what I do best: work, cook, cry. Not in like an outdated housewife way, but in a bad ass way.
Anyway, I’ll have a post on Wednesday that goes a little more in depth on Thanksgiving festivities, so let’s switch our focus to these here bars.
Describe These Bars to Me
Taste: The dough is buttery, and flavored with spices to compliment the subtle sweet potato flavor, and ripples of vanilla to match the marshmallows. The marshmallows are heavily toasted to add a delicious cozy flavor to help cut through the sweetness.
Texture: These aren’t the same as most cookie bars, they’re a little softer than you might be used to, but that’s just because of the marshmallow layer. These really do just melt in your mouth in the very best way.
Ease: These are actually super easy to throw together. We start off by browning some butter, then you just mix that together with the rest of your ingredients. Bake up half of that, throw on some marshmallows to toast, and then add the rest of the dough and finish up baking. These will only take about an hour start to finish, and there’s no mixer required.
The Dough
The dough here is so unbelievably simple. We start off with some brown butter, whose toasty nutty flavor will compliment both the spiced sweet potato and the marshmallows. Then mix that together with some brown sugar, sweet potato puree, egg yolk, vanilla, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. And that’s seriously it for the dough. So incredibly fast and simple.
The Marshmallows
Now the marshmallows are what gave me a little trouble at the start of developing this recipe. They would always disappear into the dough when I would try to bake them. The solution to this is to freeze them before you put them on top. Then give them a quick broil so they get nice and dark and toasty, and top with the remaining dough. Bake that up, and I highly recommend eating these warm. They will be a little crumbly and unstable, but they taste so much better when the marshmallow is extra gooey.
Toasted Marshmallow and Sweet Potato Bars
Ingredients
Method
- Preheat the oven to 350℉ and line a 7×11 inch rectangular baking pan with parchment paper. Make sure your marshmallows are in the freezer, this is very important!
- In a medium sized saucepan set over medium heat, melt the butter. Once melted, it will begin to sizzle and foam and you will start to see brown specks. Keep cooking, stirring constantly, until the butter is a caramel amber brown color. Immediately remove from the heat and pour into a large mixing bowl to cool for 10 minutes before you add the rest of the ingredients.
- Add the brown sugar, sweet potato puree, egg yolk, and vanilla extract to the slightly cooled brown butter and whisk until smooth. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. You should have a thick, slightly greasy dough.
- Spread/press half of the dough into the previously prepared pan in an even layer. Bake for 10 minutes, and it should look set on top but won't be fully baked through yet. Remove from the oven and arrange the frozen marshmallows in an even layer on top. Place the bars back in the oven, and turn the settings to high broil. Broil until the marshmallows are very dark brown, about 1-3 minutes. Keep a close eye on them as they burn quickly.
- Remove from the oven again and arrange the remaining sweet potato dough on top of the marshmallows. Try and flatten it out in your hands before you put it on top. You should still have some cracks where the marshmallow is peaking out. Turn the oven from broil back to 350℉ on the bake setting, and bake for another 10-12 minutes or until the dough on top is cooked through.
- Let the bars cool in the pan for at least 1 hour before slicing. They are a little messy to cut because of the marshmallow, but chilling them makes it easier. However, these are also very good warm so if you don't mind a very messy bar, you can eat them after 15 minutes cool time.