Walnut crust blue sweet potato pie

It’s very a simple and delicious coffee cake. Few ingredients, little process and full flavor.

Purple satsuma imo sweet potato. The potato has already a flavor of almond cream cake, so not much is needed.

I took the flesh of a baked potato, and smashed it with a little coconut cream, a little Grand Marnier liquor and very little sugar. Just mixed.

The crust is walnut, oatmeal, a little sugar, a pinch of salt and very little water, together in the blender. Then put in molds and dried in the oven. Well I should have taken it out before filling…
The taste is really pure walnut

So just fill the crust.

Serve chilled or warm. And enjoy with your coffee.

Purple, golden, sweet. Just potatoes.

A simple pleasure when it’s cold : eating a yaki-imo, a hot baked sweet potatoes.

Satsuma imo, Japanese sweet potato are more common in the red skin and pale yellow version.

There exist blue purple ones too.

Autumn leaf daigaku imo

大学芋 Daigaku imo, literally “the university’s potato”, is a street stall sweet. It’s certainly of Chinese origin, but theses sticky potatoes have become part of the furniture in Japan. Osaka has a famous shop that makes some special ones, dipped in crack maybe, as you can’t stop if you start eaten one. I don’t know their secret. Maybe there is none. You take good satsuma imo (Japanese sweet potato), you fry them and coat in a syrup.
And the results depends on the quality of your ingredients and how you master the process.

Flat and small is easier, so I cut shapes of 5 mm of thickness.

I cook them in 3 steps : steaming till they are half-cooked, then I stir-fry them at 160 degrees C till they soften. I put them aside and bring the oil at 180 degrees, to cook them a little more and get crispiness. I put on oil absorbing paper 2 minutes.

Syrup : 1 tbs of sugar + 1 tbs of honey or mizuame (glucose jelly) + 2 tbs of water. Simmer till it starts getting thicker. Add a few drops of fragrant sesame oil. Pass the freshly fried potatoes (still hot) in this hot syrup.
Decorate with black sesame.

NB : I fry them in normal neutral frying oil, not the dark sesame oil for seasoning. It’s possible to fry in sesame oil but only if you have a different white frying sesame oil.

They have to be soft inside crispy around. They are better if you eat them warm, just after making them.

Yamamomo on the pie, when strawberries grow on trees…

It’s a second version of the Japanese flavor pie. I have added yamamomo a season fruit.

So this is the beast. The “Chinese strawberries”. They grow on trees, particularly in Shikoku islands. In Japanese, they are called 山桃 yamamomo (mountain peaches). Even though it’s a very ancient Japanese fruit, it’s not so common on markets these days. I’m glad when I can get some.

pie base here

Then place a few yamamomo (the greenest, not so good to eat raw) and the filling and a little cane sugar on each.Bake.

Coat with raspberry jelly. Let cool.

Like the basic pie, it’s delicious served chilled.

A Japanese flavor pie

So that’s this month’s Daring Baker’s challenge.

Rachael from pizzarossa was our lovely June 2013 Daring Bakers’ host and she had us whipping up delicious pies in our kitchens! Cream pies, fruit pies, chocolate pies, even crack pies! There’s nothing like pie!

You’ll see 2 more soon :
yamamomo pie
crostata with ume plum jam
no bake cherry cream pie