The holiday season is nearly upon us, and soon after that we’ll be starting fresh with an entirely new year. To ring in the season of giving with something fun and comforting, I made a free downloadable Adventures in Cooking calendar for you to print out and hang up on the wall. I printed mine out in the comfort of my own home with my Canon PIXMA TR450 printer and matte Canon paper, hole-punched a hole in the top middle of each page, and threaded a bit of string through it to make a handy and beautiful little wall calendar. I love that all the colors of each season came through vibrant and bright, and that the contrast in the photos came out perfectly crisp and sharp with every print.

I’d definitely recommend using it for your holiday season crafts, too! Like making your own fun recipe cards with cherished family recipes to give out, or family photos printed onto Canon’s magnetic photo “paper”, or homemade printed holiday cards…there’s a lot of fun, crafty, and affordable at-home options to spread holiday cheer with the Canon PIXMA TR450 printer 🙂 And for all your holiday season recipe inspiration, Canon has put together an e-book full of delicious recipes from myself and other delightful bloggers from around the corners of the internet! You can download it for free here 🙂

And speaking of recipes, today I’m sharing with you the mother of all Thanksgiving sweet potato recipes. Think of this as an elevated version of sweet potatoes with marshmallow fluff, with more flavor, nuance, and real, whole ingredients. While it looks kinda fancy, the preparation is SUPER easy. Sweet potatoes are whole roasted in their skin, then allowed to cool for 3 hours, at which point the skin is loosened and you can peel it right off with your fingers.

While they’re cooling, you toast some pecans in a pan with butter, sugar, rosemary, and salt—which takes all of 5 minutes. The most “intense” thing is making the Italian meringue, which involves heating up a water-sugar syrup and drizzling it into fluffy egg whites into your stand mixer while it’s beating the whites. I know, “Italian meringue” sounds a little intimidating, but trust me, it’s very easy to do and homemade meringue is SOOOO light and flavorful and just melts in your mouth like a sugar cloud. It’s worth the minimal effort, I promise!

Then, just cut the sweet potatoes into 1.5-inch thick rounds, brush them with some salty butter and maple syrup, put a dollop of meringue on each one, toast them in the oven until the meringue is brown, sprinkle with the nuts, and serve! The pecans are toasted and warm and salty sweet, and the salty butter maple drizzle on the sweet potatoes is absolute heaven, not to mention the marshmallow-esque toasted meringue on top. It all comes together for a pretty insanely delicious holiday side dish.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, and that you grab yourself a Canon PIXMA printer to get your holiday craft on! I partnered with the wonderful folks at Canon for this post, and when you help support my partners, you’re helping to support me + all the recipes and seasonal goodness I bring you, too 🙂

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Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Italian Meringue and Candied Rosemary Pecans

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Keyword swete potatoes

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 2 hours

Servings 8 people

Ingredients

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

• 4 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes

Candied Rosemary Pecans

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1 cup raw pecans coarsely chopped
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
• 1/2 teaspoon flake sea salt
• parchment paper

Italian Meringue

• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons water
• 3 egg whites
• 1 pinch cream of tartar

Maple Butter Drizzle

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

Instructions

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the sweet potatoes on a lipped baking sheet, leaving at least 1 inch of space between the potatoes, and roast them whole, skin on, until soft when pierced with a skewer, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Set aside and allow to cool for 3 hours. At this point, the skins will have loosened a bit, and you can peel the skin off in pieces with your fingers.
• Peel the sweet potatoes completely, cut them into 1.5-inch thick rounds, and place them on a large casserole dish or lipped baking sheet, cut side facing up. Try to keep the tops of the sweet potatoes cut flat across, because if they're at an angle the meringue may slide off the top while they're toasting in the oven. Cover and set aside.

Candied Rosemary Pecans

• While the potatoes are cooling, prepare the nuts. Melt the butter and sugar in a medium-sized frying pan over medium heat, stirring to incorporate the sugar. Once the sugar has melted smooth and is no longer granular, add the nuts and stir to coat them in the mixture. Let them sit in the pan for a couple minutes until they start smelling slightly toasty, then stir it up again. Repeat this process until most of the nuts are lightly browned and toasted on part of their surface and the pan is very aromatic with the smell of toasted nuts. Be careful NOT to burn them, and turn down the heat immediately if the pan begins smoking.
• Remove the pan from the heat and empty the mixture onto a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Smooth it out so the nuts are in one layer, then immediately sprinkle the salt and rosemary over the nuts (it's important to do this while the syrup is still hot and sticky). Let them cool to room temperature, then break any clumps of nuts apart with your hands and set them aside.

Italian Meringue + Final Assembly

• Once the nuts have been prepared, and the sweet potatoes are cooled, peeled, and cut into rounds, you can start getting the Italian Meringue prepared.
• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat the sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium low heat until dissolved. Raise the heat to high and wait until the syrup reaches 235 degrees Fahrenheit, making sure to NOT stir the mixture.
• While the syrup is boiling, beat the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment at medium high speed until there's little bubbles at the top of the egg white mixture. Add the cream of tartar, then continue beating at medium high speed until soft peaks form. Stop the mixer until the syrup has reached the right temperature.
• When the syrup is ready, turn the mixer on medium high speed and begin adding the syrup to the egg white mixture in a thin steady stream. Continue beating until the meringue is glossy and holds a stiff peak.
• In a small pot, make the maple butter drizzle by heating the butter with the maple syrup and salt until the butter is melted. Quickly and lightly brush the sweet potatoes with half the mixture, then use a spoon to top each sweet potato round with a dollop of the meringue. (For a more decorative meringue application like the one pictured, use a pastry bag with a large round pastry tip to pipe out the meringue onto the tops of the sweet potato rounds).
• Place the pan in the oven and toast until the meringue is lightly golden, keeping a very close eye so as not to burn them, about 4 to 7 minutes. (You can also toast the meringue with a culinary torch, if you have one). Remove from the oven, drizzle with the remaining maple butter mixture, sprinkle with the candied rosemary pecans, and serve.