Sweet potato is a wonderful ingredient for making dessert. It’s gluten-free, high in fiber and low in calories. Moreover, I’m into sweet potato because it has a natural sweet flavor so that I can reduce or even remove sugar of a dessert, for example, sugar-free sweet potato filling for mochi/snow skin mooncake. Healthy and tasty, that’s why you should definitely try Sweet Potato Dessert. Let me introduce my favorite: Vietnamese Sweet Potato Dessert.
Tips for Selecting the Best Sweet Potato
Sweet Potato, which is known as for its natural sweet flavor and starchy texture, seems to originate from South America and becomes popular worldwide nowadays. It is a nutritious food source, rich in vitamins and minerals, particularly vitamin A, vitamin C, and potassium.
In Vietnam, potato is not our common food, but sweet potato. We eat boiled, baked, fried sweet potato or make paste from it as a filling for cakes and so on. Sweet potatoes come in various colors, including orange, white, yellow and purple, indicating the color of flesh of each type.
To make Vietnamese Sweet Potato Dessert, you can use every type of sweet potatoes. The most common option is purple and orange sweet potatoes, because they have vivid color and sweeter taste than white or yellow ones. Here are some tips on how to choose the best sweet potato:
- Look for firmness: Choose sweet potatoes that feel firm and have smooth, unblemished skin. Avoid any sweet potatoes that are soft, wrinkled, or have visible signs of damage, such as cuts, bruises, or mold.
- Check the skin: The skin of a sweet potato should be free of any cracks, excessive blemishes, or black spots. A few minor spots or scratches are generally fine, but avoid those with extensive damage.
- Examine the color: The skin color of sweet potatoes can vary depending on the variety, but it should be vibrant and uniform for that particular type. For example, orange sweet potatoes should have a brown-orange skin color. Purple sweet potatoes will have grey-to-purple skin.
- Consider the size and shape: Choose sweet potatoes that have a uniform shape and size, as this will make them easier to cook evenly. Smaller to medium-sized sweet potatoes are often preferred for their tenderness and flavor.
- Feel the weight: Heavier sweet potatoes are usually denser and have a higher moisture content, which can indicate freshness. However, this may not always be the case, so consider it along with other factors.
- Smell it: A fresh sweet potato should have a slightly sweet and earthy aroma. If it has a sour or musty smell, it may be overripe or spoiled.
Ingredients
Firstly, prepare some types of sweet potato available in your region. I didn’t find purple sweet potato this time, so I used only orange sweet potato. Beside Sweet Potato, you’ll need one another ingredient for this dessert, that is tapioca starch. Tapioca starch create a clear, glossy and chewy texture, so when mixing with mashed sweet potato, each piece of this dessert will be slightly chewy and glossy. The reason why you must add tapioca starch to sweet potato is that the boiled/steamed sweet potato contains a large amount of water, making it impossible to roll into small cubes in the dessert.
You shouldn’t substitute corn starch for tapioca starch, because tapioca starch’s texture after cooking is glossier and chewier. It helps to make a good-looking dessert with a unique slightly chewy texture.
Finally, a small amount of sugar is required. Although sweet potato is indeed sweet, the amount of tapioca starch added to the mixture will need sugar, so that the overall taste is sweet enough.
To eat Vietnamese sweet potato dessert, a type of milk is used. It can be whole milk, skimmed milk, soya milk or coconut milk, so feel free to select one favorite milk of yours.
How to make Vietnamese Sweet Potato Dessert
Step 1. Boil/Steam Sweet Potato
- Prepare a pot of boiling water to boil or steam sweet potatoes. Steaming could be better as the amount of water inside each sweet potato is as low as possible. However, if boiling is much more convenient, you can just boil it, but remember to keep the whole potatoes to prevent too much water from absorbing into them.
- Boil/steam sweet potatoes in 30-40 minutes, then turn off the heat but still leave them in hot water/steam until cooling down. Test the doneness by using a fork to stab them, if it’s easy to stab, your sweet potatoes are well cooked. Then, peel the skin.
Step 2. Making Sweet Potato Mixture
- After peeling the skin of boiled/steamed, weigh the boiled & peeled sweet potatoes to take the exact required amount, and use a potato masher or a fork to mash them finely.
- Next, add tapioca starch and sugar to mashed sweet potato and mix them well until they become a block of dough. Test if the dough is good to go by take a bit of dough and shape them into a cube. If you can do it easily, that means the dough is thick enough. If it’s hard to shape or roll into a small piece, the dough seems too soft because of the higher amount of water from sweet potatoes than expected, especially when you boiled them. To fix it, add more tapioca starch, little by little, mix them well and try the test again.
- Dye the dough (optional): if you would like to have a colorful bowl of sweet potato dessert, you can dye your dough by food colorings. I used natural food colorings, such as beetroot juice for the red color and pandan extract for the green color. Rest the dough in 10-15 minutes.
Step 3. Shaping and cooking sweet potato cube/ball
- Take a bit of dough and roll it into a ball or shape it into a cube. Continue until you finish the dough.
- Turn on the heat and boil water. Once it comes to rolling boil, drop the cubes/balls in. Wait until they float on boiling water, remove them from the pot and immediately soak them in cool water to prevent each cube from sticking together.
Step 5. Serving
- To serve Vietnamese Sweet Potato Dessert, add ice (if desired) and a desired amount of sweet potato cubes/balls in a bowl. Pour coconut milk/soy milk/cow milk in, and garnish with roasted peanuts and white sesames.
Variations of Vietnamese Sweet Potato Dessert
There are many variations of Vietnamese Sweet potato Dessert. If you steam your sweet potato, you can skip adding tapioca starch and simply make sweet potato paste, then roll it into balls to enjoy with milk.
Besides, you are free to add more ingredients to it, for example steamed/boiled mung beans, black bean, etc.
Another version of Sweet Potato Dessert is like a smooth sweet soup. Add water and sugar to boiled and peeled sweet potatoes, blend the mixture to get a smooth soup. Garnish it with coconut milk on top.
In short, you are free to be creative with sweet potato dessert. Try yourself and find your most favorite recipe with this wonderful ingredient!
Vietnamese Sweet Potato Dessert
Healthy and tasty, that’s why you should definitely try Sweet Potato Dessert. Let me introduce my favorite: Vietnamese Sweet Potato Dessert.
Ingredients
- 250g (~9 oz) cooked & peeled sweet potatoes
- 100g (~3.5 oz) tapioca starch
- 50g (~1.8 oz) granulated sugar
Instructions
Step 1. Boil/Steam Sweet Potato
- Prepare a pot of boiling water to boil or steam sweet potatoes. Steaming could be better as the amount of water inside each sweet potato is as low as possible. However, if boiling is much more convenient, you can just boil it, but remember to keep the whole potatoes to prevent too much water from absorbing into them.
- Boil/steam sweet potatoes in 30-40 minutes, then turn off the heat but still leave them in hot water/steam until cooling down. Test the doneness by using a fork to stab them, if it’s easy to stab, your sweet potatoes are well cooked. Then, peel the skin.
Step 2. Making Sweet Potato Mixture
- After peeling the skin of boiled/steamed, weigh the boiled & peeled sweet potatoes to take the exact required amount, and use a potato masher or a fork to mash them finely.
- Next, add tapioca starch and sugar to mashed sweet potato and mix them well until they become a block of dough. Test if the dough is good to go by take a bit of dough and shape them into a cube. If you can do it easily, that means the dough is thick enough. If it’s hard to shape or roll into a small piece, the dough seems too soft because of the higher amount of water from sweet potatoes than expected, especially when you boiled them. To fix it, add more tapioca starch, little by little, mix them well and try the test again.
- Dye the dough (optional): if you would like to have a colorful bowl of sweet potato dessert, you can dye your dough by food colorings. I used natural food colorings, such as beetroot juice for the red color and pandan extract for the green color. Rest the dough in 10-15 minutes.
Step 3. Shaping and cooking sweet potato cube/ball
- Take a bit of dough and roll it into a ball or shape it into a cube. Continue until you finish the dough.
- Turn on the heat and boil water. Once it comes to rolling boil, drop the cubes/balls in. Wait until they float on boiling water, remove them from the pot and immediately soak them in cool water to prevent each cube from sticking together.
Step 5. Serving
- To serve Vietnamese Sweet Potato Dessert, add ice (if desired) and a desired amount of sweet potato cubes/balls in a bowl. Pour coconut milk/soy milk/cow milk in, and garnish with roasted peanuts and white sesames.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 4 Serving Size: 200Amount Per Serving: Calories: 430
