Try this Baked Candied Yams - Soul Food Style recipe
- Carbohydrate 117.626306679209 g
- Cholesterol 333.725000104648 mg
- Fat 126.636703116417 g
- Fiber 1.80827495626303 g
- Protein 4.89248423136649 g
- Saturated Fat 78.4697649096206 g
- Serving Size 1 1 recipe (413g)
- Sodium 825.470981091136 mg
- Sugar 115.818031722946 g
- Trans Fat 10.565178329696 g
- Calories 1615 calories
Step-by-step
- Preheat the oven to 350 F.
- Wash the yams.
- Peel, then chop the yams ( make sure that they are about ½ inch thick.)
- Place the yams into a 9x13 bake dish.
- Place the butter into a medium sized pot, then melt it over medium heat.
- Once the butter is melted, sprinkle in the white & brown sugar, ground cinnamon,ground nutmeg, ground ginger, and ground clove.
- Turn the stove off, mix the ingredients, then add in the vanilla extract.
- Pour the candied mixture over the yams, and try to coat all the yams with the candied mixture.
- Next, cover the bake dish with foil, then bake the yams in the oven for 30 minutes.
- Remove the yams from the oven, and baste them with the candied mixture.
- Cover the yams, and bake them for another 15-20 minutes.
- Remove the yams from the oven, and let them sit for about 10 minutes before serving.
- Enjoy!
Working with a standard 9x13-inch glass or ceramic baking dish demands deliberate management of sugar densities, particularly when high concentrations of sucrose and butter undergo prolonged direct exposure to oven heat. Without careful oversight, home cooks often encounter two major pitfalls: burning the sugar syrup before the root vegetables soften through, and slicing the roots unevenly so that thin pieces dissolve into mush while thick chunks remain crunchy.
- Slice the roots to a uniform half-inch thickness using a sharp chef's knife, ensuring that thermal energy transfers at the exact same rate throughout the baking dish during the initial thirty-minute covered phase.
- Maintain a strict oven temperature of 350 degrees Fahrenheit, because higher ambient heat will instantly scorch the dairy solids in the salted butter before the starches inside the tubers fully gelatinize.
- Whisk the granulated and brown sugars directly into the melted fat off the heat source to prevent premature caramelization, which causes the sugar to crystallize into hard granules rather than blending into a smooth coating.
- Allow the dish to rest undisturbed for ten minutes after removing it from the oven, giving the heavy syrup time to cool slightly and thicken around the softened surfaces.
- Avoid substituting margarine for the requested eight tablespoons of dairy butter, as the water content and chemical emulsifiers in vegetable oil spreads will break the emulsion and prevent a proper reduction.
Basting the pieces halfway through the baking cycle redistributes the concentrating sugars across the exposed surfaces for maximum browning. Letting the starches rest undisturbed post-bake achieves the final desired consistency without requiring additional thickeners.
