Manhattan Hunter-Gatherers Newspaper 

I asked Destiny what her favorite fall food is and she said candied yams. So I decided to try and remake candied yams, so I can rate them. I found a recipe online for 7 servings. My ingredients were 2 yams, 1 ⅖ tablespoon butter, ⅛ cup pure maple syrup, 5/7 teaspoon of vanilla extract, ⅙ cup light brown sugar, ⅓ cup heavy whipping cream, and 1 ⅖ cup of mini marshmallows. The instructions were:

1. Wash yams thoroughly and poke on all sides with a fork to allow steam to escape while cooking 

2. Put yams in the microwave on several layers of paper towels

3. Cook on the “baked potato” setting or until yams are soft all the way through when poked with a fork (after five minutes I turned my potato which was halfway through the original time, then I gave it an additional 7 minutes since they weren’t soft enough)

4. Remove from microwave oven and sit for 10 minutes or until cool enough to handle

5. Slice yams in half lengthwise and scoop out with a spoon

6. In a bowl, combine yams, butter, maple syrup, ¼ cup of brown sugar, vanilla extract, and heavy cream. (I personally added a little bit of spices like nutmeg and cinnamon for some extra flavor and I winged it with the vanilla extract) Mix well, mashing with a fork or potato masher until most lumps are smoothed out

7. Spread yam mixture into a 9x13 glass baking dish

8. Sprinkle mini marshmallows evenly over the yams

9. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until the marshmallows are toasted brown. Remove from oven and serve (I only gave mines 15 minutes since the marshmallows were already toasted brown)

It took me about 45 minutes to an hour to make these and I added my own notes while baking. 

 

For my first time trying to bake this, I think I did pretty good. I liked how the texture wasn’t too mushy or too solid either. Since I didn’t use much sugar it wasn’t too sweet to the point where it wasn’t edible and it had a nice flavor thanks to the nutmeg and cinnamon I added personally outside of the recipe. I found the experience fun and I would definitely make it again because of how good it tasted. It may not be made for every Thanksgiving from now on but if I ever do a friendsgiving in the future I would definitely bring this with me. So, overall I would give it a 9.5 out of 10. I decided to ask my family to rate it too since I wanted their thoughts. My mom rated it 8.5 out of 10,  my dad rated it 8 out of 10, and my brother rated it 9 out of 10 . 

​