Super Sweet Sweet Potato Hotdish

The Blockos started a tradition a few years back where we go to Mrblocko's Grandma's for Thanksgiving and my mom's for Christmas. Not everyone is happy with this arrangement, but we are. There's no way we can make everyone happy so we figured we should make ourselves happy since we have to live with ourselves all the time.(Everyday.)

Every year I'm asked to bring my sweet potatoes. I get sick of making the same every Thanksgiving. Last year I rebelled and brought a pie instead. Can you say anarchy? Someone else brought sweet potatoes. Just a can of sweet potatoes. Ew. No wonder why everyone was upset.

So I've resigned myself to the fact that I will be bringing this dish every year. If the alternative is plain canned sweet potatoes, I'm willing to be predictable. I got the original recipe for Charline's Sweet Potato Casserole from Allrecipes. The original recipe says it serves 24. This dish is so sweet if you are serving it as a side versus dessert, it will feed a lot more people than 24.

Even though this dish is highly requested, I've had a lot of issues with it. Namely, the cooked dish never really solidifies. It has always turned out to be a soupy mess. The soupy nature never seemed to stop anyone for going back for seconds or thirds. It bothered me though.

This year I increased the amount of sweet potatoes from 2 cups to 2 1/2 cups, reduced the amount of butter, used half brown and white sugar, and baked the potatoes instead of boiling them. Viola! Problem solved. No soupy mess. Hooray! I think I can finally stop tinkering with this recipe.

Here is my scaled down version for 12:

Insulin Shock Inducing Sweet Potato Hotdish
2 1/2 c sweet potatoes (about 3 medium large)
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
2 eggs beaten
1/4 c butter, melted
1/2 c evaporated milk
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t cinnamon
1 c mini marshmallows
1/2 c flaked coconut

Topping
3/4 c crushed corn flakes (This year I used Touch of Honey Cornflakes. The topping didn't get as crispy as it did with the plain cornflakes.)
1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c chopped pecans
1/4 c butter, melted

Wash and stab the potatoes all over with a fork. (It helps if you make the stabbing sound from the movie Psycho as you do this.) Cook for about 1 hour at 450 degrees, until the potatoes are tender. Some of the sugars from the potato may bubble out and caramelize on top of the potato. That's OK. When the potatoes are cool enough to touch peel off the skins.

Place the potato flesh in a large bowl and mash slightly with a fork. Mix potatoes with 1/2 c sugar, 1/2 c brown sugar, eggs, 1/4 cup butter, evaporated milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, marshmallows and coconut. Scoop the mixture into a 2 quart baking dish you've buttered, or sprayed with PAM. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix the crushed cornflakes, 1/4 c brown sugar, pecans and remaining 1/4 cup butter. Spread the topping over the baked casserole. Bake an additional 10 minutes until the topping gets brown and crispy.