Sweet Potato Cookies

These are the cookies that almost didn't happen. If I had had a worse day- one more sink of dishes, one more load of laundry, one more missed train- these would not have made it into the oven. I follow Blissful and Domestic and she raved about using sweet potato in a loaf of bread and then in chocolate chip cookies, which works perfect because I can never figure out how to keep my sweet potatoes from going bad before using them. Why does this happen? My potatoes are fine, but those big hulking orange tubers ALWAYS go bad and soft and squishy. 


So when I'm having a bad day, I resort to baking. There is nothing that can't be fixed with fresh bread. Or a good batch of chocolate chip cookies. On the flip side, if the cookies turn out wrong then the whole day is ruined and you may as well go back to bed.

I realized that I didn't have any of the flax seed and shtuff like Blissful and I really didn't want to add oatmeal (I was thinking chocolate chip after all, not oatmeal). So I searched the web a little bit and came up with this. Except that in my hope of being pro-active I melted some butter on the stove. Actually melted two sticks of butter into a beautiful yellow fatty pool on the stove. I cleaned it all up (squeezing it out of paper towels) and later realized that this recipe doesn't even call for butter. But that didn't come until later.

Realistically I sort of changed this whole recipe around because I don't like oil cookies. So this is my recipe. And gosh-darnit these are tasty.

Ingredients

2/3 cup baked, mashed sweet potato (pierce skin with fork and bake at 400 for 40 minutes on tin foil-lined baking sheet)
2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 large eggs
1 cup packed brown sugar (smells a little different but tastes great)
1/2 cup butter
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup 'fresh' chocolate chips  AS MANY CHOCOLATE CHIPS AS YOU FREAKING WANT

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease baking sheet and set aside.

In large bowl, mix dry ingredients together. Set aside.
In medium bowl, whisk eggs and sugar together.  Add oil and vanilla; whisk again.  Fold in mashed sweet potato.
Add egg mixture to dry ingredients, all at once.  Using a spatula, mix until now flour remains dry.  Fold in chocolate chips.
Scoop cookie dough, by the heaping tablespoonful, onto greased baking sheet, 2 inches apart.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes before placing on wire rack to cool completely.

So what if my pureed sweet potato actually still had the skins on? So what if I miscalculated the direction of my Pam spray and sprayed myself? So what if I used oil the first time around, wasting two eggs and a cup of brown sugar? These cookies are soft and moist and remind me of persimmon cookies like Great Grandma Evelyn's but they have chocolate so they're a million times better.

Link up! House of Hepworths, So You Think You're Crafty, Chic on a Shoestring Budget, Frugal Friday, Craftionary, Foodie Friday, Friday Flair, Pity Party