Sweet potato chocolate cream #whiletheovenisstillhot

Thinking about this website, what I was excited about the most, was the opportunity to share my kitchen routines and habits (the good ones, of course!). That’s why you are seeing this first post from the new category – I called it „while the oven is still hot”. My friends sometimes make fun of me because I rarely prepare just one thing in the kitchen, but usually, I try to kill two birds with one stone (not so vegan of me…). When the oven is heating up, I am looking through the kitchen, searching for something extra that I can bake or roast. After all, the oven consumes some energy and there is a lot of space in it, so why not use it?

My appeal for today: next time you gonna prepare something in the oven, put a sweet potato in there too. Thanks to this, you will get a chocolate spread/cream. It doesn’t require much sweetening, because the sweet potato itself is sweet. It’s also easy to make even healthier, sugar-free version, using a few dates.

• 1 large sweet potato (or 2 smaller ones)
• 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder
• 1/3 teaspoon of salt (I prefer 1/2, but check how it works for you)
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar / 3 tablespoons agave syrup / 6 dates soaked for a few minutes in boiling water
• optional: a spoon of peanut butter or tahini (if you are looking for a more nutty taste) / a pinch of chilli to add character

Preparation

1. Do not peel the sweet potato. Cut in half, bake for 25/30 min in 180/200C (check if the sweet potato is soft. This may depend on the size of the vegetable)
2. Remove the cooled sweet potato with a spoon from the crus, transfer to a bowl
3. Add cocoa, salt (please don’t be afraid of adding salt for chocolate experiments!), and the chosen sweetener. Using a hand blender or the one with the „S” shaped blade, blend the cream for 2 minutes, until smooth.
4. Try it. Decide if you want to make it sweeter / with more cocoa flavour / or maybe you gonna decide to add a pinch of chilli? The cream tastes best when cooled.

This simple cream is a good spread for bread, as an addition to porridge/muesli or as a filling for the chocolate cake.