tl;dr
(click for the Sweet Potato Cakes recipe)
Now that the holidays are over, I can finally go back to not binge-baking and doing things like making book-inspired foods! I mean, it’s good reason to be varying what I’m eating. I’ve gotten into the habit of making my own meals on a regular basis, though it becomes a problem when I’m making the same things for myself all the time. Hence my need to branch out and do other things!
Like these sweet potato cakes!
“We’ve almost got them fooled,” I noted, offering Daisy a paper bag full of sweet, round cakes.
She eyed them cautiously. “What’s wrong with them?”
“Do you really think I’d eat something that wasn’t delicious?” When she hesitated, I added, “Yeah, I know, trash. Look, just try it.”
She picked up a small potato cake and cautiously ate it. Her eyes brightened. “Oh, that is delicious!” Then she smiled at me–and her smile was bright and genuine, and I felt like I was falling even as I stood still.
I feel like I could have done several things from Ashley Poston’s Among the Beasts and Briars, especially in that festival scene, with skewers of meat and warm wine and stuff, but I did fixate on potato cakes because, well, I’ve never actually had potato cakes before?
Among the Beasts and Briars was a fun fantasy/fairy tale-ish read, and one of the POVs in the book happens to be that of Fox, who, through certain magical circumstances, becomes human for a time. In one scene, he goes to a festival/wedding with the other main POV, Cerys, and they start sampling the foods. Mostly because Fox is a glutton who eats everything, and I adore him for that.
But anyway, onto the cakes.
They didn’t specify what kind of potato cakes this was, whether it was an actual cake inside the paper bag, or something like the parsnip cakes I’d made before, where I had to mash up potatoes and fry them. I went with the latter, and instead of just your regular potatoes, I felt perhaps sweet potatoes might be interesting to do. So I went and found a simple sweet potato cakes recipe and started going about my business.
It was also good excuse to go and re-pot my herbs, as well as harvest some cilantro. I’ve been working on an herb garden to middling success. While my dill and cilantro are growing pretty well (and miraculously, chives is coming along), my other three have been really stubborn. In any case, the cilantro went into my mixture! I ended up going the baked potato route, mostly because I love the smell of baked potato, and it’s really easy to scoop them out and mash them.
Verdict: They were definitely delicious! I could have added a bit more salt, since the salt brought out the sweetness of the sweet potato. I probably should have also turned down the heat a bit, because the cakes cooked too quickly on the outside. Overall, it was definitely lovely with a dollop of sour cream and salad!
Story and Somnomancy 