Elevate Sweet Potatoes From Basic To Gourmet With A Beautiful Brûlée Finish

Sweet potatoes, with their natural sweetness and earthy flavor, have long been a staple for any kind of meal on any kind of occasion. While their versatility makes them excellent in a great variety of dishes, the sad truth is that, after a while, you run out of ways to get creative with sweet potatoes. If you want to seriously upgrade your sweet potatoes from basic to gourmet, it's time to really think outside of the box. Turn it into a beautiful crème brûlée to get an Instagram-worthy baked sweet potato.

It's worth mentioning that you may have already seen a sweet potato crème brûlée on Instagram before. Imo Pippi, a sweet potato-focused sweets shop in Tokyo, is famous for its delightful sweet potato treats — one of its most popular items is, indeed, a crème brûlée set inside the nicely roasted skin of a sweet potato. It has even inspired visitors to try and recreate it at home, which is, all things considered, not that difficult to do.

There are a couple of ways to approach a sweet potato crème brûlée. The most obvious is to mimic Imo Pippi's take on it: Cut the sweet potato open to use it as a shell for a delicious crème brûlée. Another method is to scoop out the sweet potato flesh and incorporate it into the crème brûlée custard itself to really harmonize all the flavors. For the most part, the cooking process goes through roughly the same steps either way.

The first thing to do is to roast the sweet potatoes. If you're choosing the Imo Pippi method, you can pick between roasting on a baking sheet for a fluffier texture or wrapping it in foil for a moistter and softer mouthfeel. Then comes making the filling. You'll be making the standard egg yolk, caster sugar, vanilla, and cream custard, incorporating the sweet potato after the whisking if you choose to do so.

When you're carving or scooping the roasted sweet potato, make sure not to go too far. Ideally, you still want a good layer of sweet potato flesh to actually hold the custard in instead of turning it into a leaking mess. Additionally, you should let the sweet potatoes cool a bit before you add in the custard just so that the piping hot insides don't start overcooking the custard. Then top with sugar, torch for that beautifully caramelized sheen, and voilà — a crème brûlée sweet potato ready to be enjoyed.

One thing to note is that the Imo Pippi crème brûlée sweet potato is meant to be made with a Murasaki sweet potato, which is quite different from the usual red and orange varieties you'd see in local grocery stores. These purple-skinned, golden-fleshed sweet potatoes are markedly more moist and sweet than the conventional sweet potato, which might contribute to how well they pair with crème brûlée custard. 

In theory, you might not get the same lush sweetness from eating a crème brûlée out of a regular baked sweet potato. If you can't get your hands on a Murasaki sweet potato — or its close cousin, the goguma – it might be best to stick to incorporating the sweet potato into the custard. Additionally, given the much earthier taste of red sweet potato, your sweet potato custard might benefit from some warming spices like cinnamon to really get the most out of the flavor profile.

Of course, there's nothing stopping you from taking this approach with a Murasaki potato for an especially decadent custard filling, either. You can mix and match as much as you want. The important thing is that these crème brûlée sweet potatoes bring a wow factor to both flavor and appearance, making them a fantastic upgrade to the usual baked sweet potato or sweet potato dish you might serve at dinner.