Sweet Potato Molasses Cake-Like Cookies
Easy Sweet Potato Cookies
Sweet potatoes are about as humble as you can get in a vegetable, aside from the the classic russet potato. As versatile as russet potatoes can be, sweet potatoes can beat them out in terms of versatility. Sweet potato pie, candied and desserts, we’re all over it like kids in a candy store. Moving on over to something different this week, we’re craving something cookie-ish and of course, sweet potato-ish because tis the season for sweet potatoes.
Watch the Video for these Sweet Potato Molasses Cookies:
Vietnamese cinnamon & sweet potatoes: deadly combination. But in a good deadly way.
We’re seeing them everywhere at the markets and with so many different varieties, we’ve always eating something every week that sweet potato based. We combined a few different sweet potato cookies to come up with these soft, molasses, rum-macerated-raisin, sweet potato cookies. One of us is a big fan of cake-like cookies, and the other loves to inebriate our desserts, so we both won on this cookie recipe. The combination of soft, fluffy and cake-like texture of these cookies reminds us of muffin tops. So if you’re a fan of muffin tops, these cookies are perfect for you.
It’s the sweet, caramel taste of the molasses that shines through this cookie too. Not too sweet and perfectly pillowy soft like a little cake. Our sweet potato molasses cookies are different and always a treat to share with cookie lovers.
We also used a very cool buttermilk substitute for the first time. It is something we we never have in the fridge and we hate having to go out the the store for just one ingredient, so we tried this method and were very pleased. For every cup of buttermilk needed, take a cup of regular milk, add a tablespoon of lemon juice, then let it sit for about 5 minutes. Works great for most of our cooking needs.
Cheers!
-todd & diane
This recipe post was originally published in 2010 and re-published in 2019 with a new video!
Molasses Sweet Potato Cookie (Cake-like cookies)
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (75g) Raisins
- 1/2 cup Dark Rum (enough to cover raisins when macerating)-Optional
- 1 cup (226g) Butter , soft at room temp.
- 1/2 cup (110g) Brown Sugar
- 1 Egg
- 1/2 cup (170g) Molasses
- 1 cup (150g) grated raw Sweet Potato
- 2 teaspoons finely grated Orange Zest
- 2 teaspoons finely grated fresh Ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground Cinnamon , or to taste - if you can freshly grate Vietnamese Cinnamon it will be all the better
- 2 cups (250g) All-purpose Flour
- 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt
- 1/4 cup (60ml) Buttermilk , see head note for substitute
- powdered sugar for dusting
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C). Line two sheet pans with parchment paper or silpats.
- Optional-Put raisins in a small bowl and pour enough dark rum to completely cover. Allow to macerate for at least 30 min. (but the longer you can macerate them, the better.)
- Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Crack the egg into a small bowl, then pour into the butter/sugar mix and beat until thoroughly combined.
- Add molasses, sweet potato, orange zest, ginger, and cinnamon. Mix until well combined. Mix in the buttermilk
- Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Stir the flour mixture into the batter until just combined. Drain raisins (if macerating) and mix them into the batter.
- Form dough balls about 2 tablespoons in size and place onto the lined sheet pans (use two small spoons or a small cookie scoop is easiest), leaving space between the dough balls for them to spread.
- Bake for about 10-14 minutes or until just set. Allow to cool to room temperature, then dust the cookies with powdered sugar.
I made these with agave nectar in place of the sugar, whole wheat flour, and just regular golden raisins. Extra ginger and orange zest. I also added oatmeal. They were sweeter because of the nectar and hearty with oatmeal. Delicious.
These were delicious!!! Made them with the substitution of home made buttermilk (used 2%milk), omitted the orange zest, but bumped the ginger, soaked golden raisins in brandy and dessert muscat wine for 1/2 day- really light and went fantastic with the rest of the muscat, would make them again for sure and maybe even use some raisin rum ice cream to make them into sandwiches!
Awesomeness!
The buttermilk substitute is 1/4 T of white vinegar?
Not quite. Add 1/4 T of white vinegar or 1/4 T of lemon juice to a 1/4c of regular milk to make the buttermilk substitute.
Now these are some amazing cookies. Rum, molasses & sweet potatoes – yeah, you’ve got my attention.
I didn’t know about the combination of vietnamese cinnamon and sweet potatoes….. despite being married to a vietnamese chick ; I have a milion things I want to try now 🙂
These cookies must be soooo good , gonna save the recipe for sure.
Dario
Did you say rum? These must be delicious.
Merry Christmas!
In item #4 of the recipe instructions you left out the cinnamon, I assume you would include that in with the other dry ingredients. They sound wonderful can’t wait to try them.
Correct. Thank you for catching that for us. It’s now corrected in the recipe.
Buttermilk can be substitute by milk and yogurt. I think this is a unique recipe of yours. This is my first time to see like this in my whole searching recipes in the net. Thanks for the awesome recipe.
I made them but was a bit thrown off because the term cookie made me think there would be a bit of a crunch somehow. They were tasty but more cake like than I expected.
I live in Japan, where we have no buttermilk. I often substitute a mixture of milk and yogurt. Also works great!
Oh! I never thought of having potato on my cookie recipe. I think this would be a great for my kids’ snacks since they don’t want veggies I could trick them with this. LOL. Thanks a lot for sharing.
You can also use plain white vinegar in lieu of the lemon juice (old southern trick) to make a quick buttermilk. Just make sure your milk is at room temperature to sour properly.
These cookies look scrumptious and I can’t wait to pour through your photography tutorials. I am slowly learning my way through the lens.
I’ll chime in on the buttermilk powder thing. Discovered it in Ireland years ago, and, incredibly, when I came home, I found it in my suburban grocery store (the one that forced me to grow and pickle my own jalapenos for my hubby cuz they didn’t have ’em). I know I’ve seen it at Whole Foods, too, if you shop there. Handy to have for scones, biscuits, pancakes etc. and if you don’t use it a lot, you can store it in the freezer. Love these cookies, too, always looking for more variations in the molasses family. Thanks.