Orange Sweet Potatoes with Brown Sugar Butter Crunch

This delicious dish is a tradition for our family at both Thanksgiving and Christmas! I actually remember the first year I spent Christmas at my in-laws home and I asked if I could make these---they make it every year now too!! This recipe comes from my grandmother from Alabama, she is such a great cook, LOVE the food down there! My dad and I added the orange to it many years ago and we love it! The yummy sweet potatoes and buttery, crunchy topping taste like a dessert. In fact my husband is crazy about this dish and calls it "sweet potato pie."

Orange Sweet Potatoes with Brown Sugar Butter Crunch Topping:
3 cups Sweet Potatoes, cooked and mashed (I cook with skins on and let them cool so the peels just fall off easily)
3 Eggs
1/4 cup Butter, melted
1/4 cup Milk
1 tablespoon Vanilla
1/2 cup Sugar
1/8 teaspoon Salt
1/2 of a Fresh Orange

Topping:
1/4 cup Butter
1/4 cup Flour
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Pecans

Preheat oven to 350.
Cook and mash sweet potatoes. Place in greased 2 quart glass baking dish, an 8x8 square or round. You will mix all ingredients in there. Add eggs and "beat" in with a fork or whire whisk. Stir in melted butter, milk, vanilla, sugar and salt. Mix well. Then take your orange that has been cut in half and squeeze all the juice from the half into your sweet potatoes. Then grate the orange zest from the half of orange right into your sweet potatoes, try to use as much of the peel as you can! Mix it all together well.

Next you will mix the topping ingredients together with your fingers til crumbly, then just crumble over your sweet potatoes. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes, until topping is browned, YUM!



NOTE: This will feed about 6 people, if you are serving a crowd, then double the recipe and bake in a 9x13 pan. I often double this recipe at Thanksgiving and bake in 2 dishes, then I wrap and freeze one to serve at Christmas!! It freezes and reheats perfectly and saves precious time!