We had a lot of fun at our canning demo yesterday.  The weather was beautiful and we were so fortunate to work with the folks at the Museum of Life + Science – hopefully we’ll get to work with them again soon! For those of you that missed it, Reliable Cheese, Monuts and Goat Patrol were all over on our side of things and we had a good time chatting with everyone there.

Our recipe for the demo yesterday was a Purple Sweet Potato Butter, adapted from Steve Dowdney’s recipe for Sweet Potato Butter in Putting Up.  Since that recipe was published, the USDA has changed their stance on canning squash, pumpkin and sweet potatoes at home. Their reasoning is that because the acidity levels in these veggies can vary it is difficult to know that a recipe has a sufficient amount of acid for preserving. We amped up the acidity in the recipe a little but, and you can check the acidity level of your preserves by buying pH test strips (we got ours at Fifth Season in Carrboro, you can also find them in some pharmacies) but a lot of home canners would rather just follow recipes.  The other concern is that because of the thickness of the mixture the heat from processing in a hot water bath will not penetrate all the way through.  But do not be alarmed! You can still store your sweet potato butter in the fridge for a couple of months. We were still able to teach the basics of canning (processing the jars in a hot water bath to seal them), even if this particular recipe shouldn’t be left in the cupboard.

The butter itself is beeeeeautiful! The the acids really amp up the bright magenta color, making it a really fun recipe for kids.  While Ben is certainly the jam guy, my professional culinary experience started with baking. Before moving to North Carolina I worked as a pie baker in Brooklyn at a little shop called Four & Twenty Blackbirds.  If you’re ever in Brooklyn, you have to make a point of stopping by, the sisters who own that shop are the best! I’ve found jam to be very similar to pie in that you’re dealing with seasonal fruits and veggies to come up with delicious flavor combinations.  So when Ben found Dowdney’s recipe in Putting Up I was very excited… Dowdney explains that a pint jar of sweet potato butter can be used to make an easy filling for a sweet potato pie.  He suggests simply adding an egg, but if I were you I would add some cream as well.  In case you missed the demo, here’s our recipe:

Purple Sweet Potato Butter

Yield: 6 half-pint jars

3 lbs purple sweet potatoes
1 1/4 cups apple cider
1/2 cups lemon juice
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp cardamom
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp salt

Sanitize your jars and lids either by placing in boiling water or in a hot dishwasher.
Quarter potatoes and roast at 400 F, until soft. Allow to cool and remove skins.
Place potatoes in a large pot with the cider, lemon juice and vinegar. Mash and then whisk until smooth (this can also be done in a food processor or blender).
Add the remaining ingredients and stir well. Bring mixture to a low boil.
In a separate pot, bring water to boil. This will be your canning bath, it needs to have enough water that when your jars are submerged they are covered by at least two inches of water.
Slowly raise the temperature of your sweet potato butter, continuously stirring.
Once your sweet potato butter has reached 205 F it is ready to be canned.
Spoon the mixture into your pre-sanitized jars leaving about a half-inch of headspace and place lids and rings on at fingertip tightness.
Place jars in your canning bath and process with lid on for fifteen minutes. Remove jars and allow to rest overnight. Listen for the pops!
Store in the fridge.

BONUS! To make a delicious sweet potato pie-
Mix 3 cups of sweet potato butter with 2 eggs and 1/4 quarter cup of cream.
Bake in a prebaked pie shell at 325 F until firm (about 30 minutes)

So you’ve probably had sweet potatoes before, especially since North Carolina is the biggest producer of sweet potatoes in the U.S., but what about purple sweet potatoes? Purple sweet potatoes are native to the Americas, but were introduced to Asia sometime in the 1500s. Since then they have had huge popularity in Japanese dishes, which is why they are referred to more formally as Okinawan sweet potatoes. Filipinos have a recipe for a sweet jam-like spread with sweetened condensed milk called halayang ube, ube being their word for purple yams.

So what’s the difference between sweet potatoes & yams, especially since both can be purple? In short, sweet potatoes are native to the Americas whereas yams are from Africa. At a certain point, sweet potatoes in America started being re-branded as yams. Yams are a much larger, more fiberous tuber that you are unlikely to see in America.

We’re taking a bit of a break from workshops as I’m two weeks away from my due date (it’s a girl! And no, we don’t have a name picked out yet).  But we’ve got some other partnerships in the works for upcoming workshops and Ben is sitting behind me furiously researching recipes for the launch of our winter flavors in January.  Interested in purchasing some of our jam? Check out our JSA where you can sign up to get a jar of jam each month starting in January!