If you have been around Black Girls Who Brunch for awhile you know I LOVE all things Sweet Potato! This love honestly grew out of watching my pinterest feed fill up with pumpkin spice recipes every fall.  As I scroll all of the pumpkin recipes I imagine upgrading them with sweet potato instead.  Since no one was doing god’s work and converting all of these recipes to sweet potato, I decided to take on the challenge myself.   Hence my latest creation a Sweet Potato Trifle!  Imagine this as a deconstructed sweet potato pie or kind of like a banana pudding.  All the same it’s GOOD, get in to this Sweet Potato Trifle!

Sweet Potato Trifle
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Sweet Potato Trifle

A sweet potato trifle with a sweet potato pudding, homemade whipped cream, a layer of crushed graham crackers and pecans.

Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword Dessert, Fall Desserts, Sweet Potato
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings 4 Mini Trifles

Ingredients

Sweet Potato Pudding

  • 1 Cup Mashed Sweet Potatoes (cooled) *two to three medium roasted sweet potatoes
  • 2 Cups Whole Milk
  • 2 Tablespoons Cornstarch *for thicker pudding add more cornstarch
  • 1/2 Cup White Granulated Sugar
  • 1/4 Teaspoon Salt
  • 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
  • 2 Teaspoons Cinnamon *add more or less depending on your preference
  • 1 Teaspoon Nutmeg *add more or less depending on your preference
  • 2 Egg Yolks

Homemade Whipped Cream

  • 2 Cups Heavy Whipping Cream
  • 2 Tablespoons Powdered Sugar
  • 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Trifle Ingredients

  • Pecans
  • Graham Crackers

Instructions

Sweet Potato Pudding

  1. For the sweet potatoes, roast them on a baking sheet at 425 for at least an hour. When they are ready, you should be able to pinch the sweet potato with your thumb and index finger. After cooling, remove the skin and blend the sweet potatoes in a blender or food processor. Blend until the sweet potatoes are creamy. Place in the fridge to cool.

  2. Whisk your egg yolks in a separate bowl and set aside.

  3. Before placing the pot on the stove, pour in milk, cornstarch, sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon and nutmeg in to pot. Gently whisk to make sure everything is combined. Place on the stove at medium high heat.

  4. As the milk mixture starts to heat, you will need to temper your eggs by slowly adding some of the heated milk mixture to the eggs to slowly bring them to temperature. By doing this your eggs will not scramble as much. Once heated, add in the eggs to the milk mixture.

  5. Continue to slowly whisk for 5-6 minutes until it starts to thicken. Once it thickens to desired level remove from heat. Immediately strain the pudding using a mesh strainer to remove any lumps or scrambled eggs.

  6. Gently fold in the cooled mashed sweet potato in to pudding. Store in the fridge

    Sweet Potato Pudding

Whipped Cream

  1. For the homemade whipped cream, start by putting the KitchenAid metal bowl in the fridge for about 10 minutes.

  2. Remove bowl from fridge and add heavy whipping cream, powdered sugar and vanilla extract.  Begin whipping the cream on medium high until it reaches whipped cream consistency. Set aside once completed. 

Build Trifle

  1. In small trifle dishes or one large trifle dish, layer pudding, whipped cream and other toppings. For the versions here, I added a layer of pecans, whipped cream, a layer of pudding and then topped it with a dollop of whipped cream. Sprinkle a little cinnamon or more pecans on top.

  2. Serve immediately or store in the fridge before serving.

Tips

Sweet Potato Trifle

A lot of my recipe tests come with some fails.  While it’s frustrating, these fails help me provide better tips for you all when you are making the recipes.   Basically I fail so you all don’t have to!  This was my first time making any homemade pudding so I expected a few tries to get it right.  Here is what I learned and questions I expect you all to ask!

  • Cornstarch serves as a thickener so be careful if you add more.  I started with three tablespoons of cornstarch and it got thick very fast!  Two tablespoons worked better for me.
  • This is a pot that needs to be watched.  The pudding thickens fast and goes from good to bad very quickly!  Watch it and whisk it as it goes.
  •  I have not tried this recipe with alternative milks like almond milk or coconut milk, but I imagine they would work the same.  The true magic of pudding comes from the cornstarch which thickens it.
  • Can I use a boxed pudding?  I have not tested this with a boxed pudding, but I would not recommend because you would need to add the sweet potatoes to it and they may not mix well together.
  • Can I use canned sweet potatoes?  I would also recommend roasting your own sweet potatoes.  Canned items tend to have more liquid (syrup or water) which may change the consistency of your pudding.
  • Do I really need to strain the pudding?  If scrambled eggs in pudding doesn’t bother you then skip that step.  Otherwise, invest in a mesh strainer.
  • One other note on tempering your eggs, when you add the sweet potato to your pudding it must be cooled or it will cook the eggs.  I made this mistake on my first round of recipe testing.  Cooled sweet potatoes are the way to go!

Enjoy and please come back and rate the recipe if you use it!

Closeup of Sweet Potato Trifle