Sweet potato and ginger are absolutely amazing together. The warm heat of ginger balanced with the smooth, sweet earthy potato is a marriage made in heaven. These chewy, soft, cakey cookies are delicious with a hot mug of tea on a cool autumn afternoon. You could add chopped chocolate or toasted pecans for some crunch, or just nibble them straight up.
Biscuits, cookies, whatever you call them, they’re such a quick and easy treat to whip up, aren’t they? Recently I’ve made beet chocolate chunk cookies, pumpkin and hazelnut cookies, kale and almond biscotti and even carrot jammy dodgers.
The clocks went back yesterday, so that means that anyone with small children is suffering today. Adjust tiny little body clocks, adjust! My little ones were rather grumpy, so I plied them with these sweet potato cookies while they ran around dressed as a lion and batman. Nothing to do with impending Halloween – they’re usually either naked or in fancy dress. The life of under 5s is a road filled with simple pleasures and lego.
- 350g (12 oz / 2 cups) sweet potato
- 150g (1⅓ cups) plain flour
- 150g (2 cups) porridge oats
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 100g (½ cup) unsalted butter, softened
- 50g (¼ cup) light brown sugar
- 50g (¼ cup) granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, finely grated
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- Steam, bake or boil the sweet potato until soft, run under cold water to cool, drain and puree until smooth and set aside.
- Whisk the flour, oats, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and ground ginger together in a bowl. Stir in the oats and set aside.
- In another bowl, cream together the butter and both sugars for a few minutes until light and fluffy. Add the egg, vanilla and ginger and beat well. Beat in the pureed sweet potato.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to combine.
- Drop teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto the prepared baking tray, press down lightly with the back of a fork and bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool for a few minutes on the tray and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Still have sweet potatoes to use up? Don’t let them go to waste, try one of these recipes!
Sweet Potato and Ginger Protein Balls (Vegan)
Sweet Potato Latte
Carrot and Sweet Potato Coconut Soup from the lovely Helen at Fuss Free Flavours
Cajun Spiced Black Bean and Sweet Potato Burgers from Jac at veggie/vegan blog Tinned Tomatoes
Red Lentil, Sweet Potato and Coconut Curry from Gena at Choosing Raw
Vegan Sweet Potato and Black Bean Tacos look great from Danni and Hungry Happy Healthy
I have never used sweet potato in a dessert before. Definitely trying these. Thanks for linking to my recipe 🙂
Sweet potato and ginger go really well together, so they’re great for a dessert 🙂
Mmmm they look good!
Thanks Jan, they were really lovely!
A lovely recipe Katherine, mine are struggling too after the clock change – good idea to feed them sweet potato cookies 🙂
Thanks Ren. The clocks changing is so awful for parents!
I’ve never used sweet potato in a sweet dish. Odd, given it’s name.. Really intrigued to try these, can’t imagine the texture. I will report back! Thank you!
Hi Sarah, sweet potato are lovely in sweet dishes. So popular in America for treats!
What a great flavour combo – I’d never thought to use sweet potato in baking so this is definitely going on my to-try list… I’ve made a chocolate mashed potato cake before and that was lovely!
Thanks Katie, potato is great in cakes, isn’t it?!
These look so yummy, and I just bought a huge bag of sweet potatoes. Do you happen to know if porridge oats are the same as rolled oats in the U.S.? I’m getting different answers from Internet searching – some say it is rolled oats, others say it is steel cut oats. I can’t imagine steel cut oats cooking well in a cookie, but I’ve never tried, so I thought I better ask to see which one you mean.
Hi Barb. I think it’s rolled oats!
Thanks! I’m going to make these this weekend!
I know someone asked above, but I don’t feel convinced (http://www.mornflake.com/our-oats/types-of-oats.aspx -this website disagrees). Are they the big round flat ones, made from whole rolled groats, or are they the flakier, tinier kind, the kind that you get if you pulse the big ones for a few secs in a food processor. It’s quite the difference for cookies. I really wanna know because I’m dying to try these and don’t wanna mess up. Btw, I’m thrilled about just now finding out about your site and feel like I found home somehow :). I also really really like putting vegetables in deserts, it thrills me to do that (though I like it much more when I manage to sneak them in, as opposed to let them shine; either way, I love love love what you’re about with this blog)
Thanks for such lovely comments! You’ll need the slightly smaller oats. The big chewy ones may be a bit too big in these. I hope you like them!
I can’t put my finger on these cookies. I feel like they have much more potential than I managed to bring through. It’s like they could use being added some ingredient, or I made them a bit wrong. I like them, but I can tell they’re not for everybody. Are the 2 cups of sweet potatoes referring to after they’re mashed? Because that seemed like a lot when I was putting it in the dough, my prebaked cookies looked like mashed potato lumps :). I also had to bake them quite longer (how soft are they supposed to be?). I feel like next time I might put in just one cup of the mashed SP.
Btw, this article might help everyone:
http://www.thekitchn.com/quick-tip-how-to-get-the-sweet-101646
I used the tips there and my SP came out of the oven so intensely sweet I barely needed to sweeten my cookies at all (a handful of chopped dates, some stevia and a touch of honey were enough for me).
Btw, would it be silly flavour-wise to try and mash in a banana next time? I think I’ll try that. And next time I’ll go even heavier on the ginger.
Oh, and it’s really no biggie to put big oats in them as well, they can handle it; I went half/half (you can even sub oat flour for the flour, it works just as well)
(p.s. so far tried your zucchini pancakes and avocado-banana cookies, and liked them and can’t wait to try more stuff.). All the best!
Brilliant this is on my list for my winter break cooking class
Mmm! I just made these! They are so yummy! And not super sweet like I wanted! (I also used coconut sugar instead of the brown sugar–not sure if that would change the sweetness at all.) I also doubled the ginger, because I love ginger. Thanks again! Yum!
Hi Kate. Again from Romania. I have finished now your cookies. Unbelievable how smells my house. The taste is perfect. You feel ginger a little spicy and all goes very well.. I have changed a little bit the sugar composition. have used light brown sugar and muscovado sugar. Thank you for the idea and this will be super for our lunch because today is our national day. This will go for sure on my blog. Sorin’s Kitchn.