Tidbit Tuesday (sweet, sweet potatoes)

If you're at all like me then you like your sweet potatoes extra sweet. Sweet potatoes are packed with nutrients so I've convinced myself that it's okay to load them up with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. It's so yummy that way! Today's Tidbit is all about making your sweet potatoes extra special so if you like 'em sweet read on.

We first discovered this "technique" when living in Denver. There's a place called Hammond's Candies that offers free tours of the factory. We would always take people when they came to visit because it was free, they provided samples and it was quite fascinating to see them making the candy.

The tour ends at their gift shop, a candy lover's dream. Like most gift shops, the prices are a little high. So we would always head straight to the, lower priced, "Oops!" section.  That's when we discovered Mitchell Sweets. They would have bags of these treats all smashed and melted together, clearly an Oops! Definitely not lacking in tastiness though.

Image from hammondscandies.com

Mitchell Sweets are handmade marshmallows covered in vanilla caramel. One year for Thanksgiving we went to make our Sweet Potato Casserole and instead of putting the usual marshmallows on top we used pieces of Mitchell Sweets.  I searched for a picture but couldn't find one :( Then of course we broiled the casserole and the results were out of this world. The marshmallow swelled up to perfection and the caramel oozed it's way all throughout the dish.

Let's just say after putting caramel covered marshmallows on our casserole it was hard to have a plain sweet potato ever again. Sometimes we would bake up individual sweet potatoes to go along with our meals and couldn't resist putting a few pieces of Mitchell Sweets on top.

We no longer live near Hammond's Candies but the candies can be purchased online.  If you're ever in the Denver area you should give them a visit.

A couple weeks ago I shared about some DIVINE Fleur De Sel Caramels I won made by The Sugar Gnomes.  Clearly they are not Mitchell Sweets, they are made from the finest all natural organic ingredients and are pure art. With that being said I couldn't help but sacrifice one for my baked sweet potato. I baked the potato and cut it open. Then I placed some pieces of the Fleur De Sel Caramels inside the sweet potato and put it back in the oven to broil for a couple minutes.

That caramel melted and oozed it's way into the potato flesh and I would say it was no sacrifice at all. That took my boring, week night sweet potato to a new level. It was so good!

The moral of the story is, if you you want to take your baked sweet potatoes or sweet potato casserole to the next level and make them extra special, and dare I say Gourmet, put some soft caramel candies on top. You will be happy that you did!

Have a Tidbit you want to share? E-mail me or share it on my Facebook page.