Sugar Cookies Filled with Spiced Sweet Potato

I love sweet potatoes and there are plenty on the market at the moment. They are so tasty and the color is so amazing that it lends itself to all sorts of dishes, sweet and savory. 

Today, I was feeling pretty adventurous and so I tried making sugar cookies with a sweet potato filling. I also had this wild flower honey for some time and decided to completely substitute the granulated sugar for it. I added a good measure of cinnamon, a little bit of this and a little bit of that... 

Sugar Cookies with a Spiced 
Sweet Potato Filling

Cookie Dough
150 g butter
150 g of sugar
2 g of salt (1/4 teaspoon spoon)
1 whole egg
1/2 vanilla pod (grated) - or 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
230 g of flour

In a mixing bowl, beat the butter, sugar and salt until white and creamy. Add the seeds from the vanilla pod (or extract) and then the flour. Mix until the dough looks grainy. Add the egg and beat until the dough comes together. Put in a bowl, cover and let rest in the fridge while preparing the filling.

Spiced Sweet Potato Filling
300 g of cooked and mashed sweet potato
60 g of honey
3 g of cinnamon (1 teaspoon)
pinch of salt
zest from a whole lemon
20 g of quick oats
2 tablespoons of milk (for brushing)

Cook the sweet potato in the oven (30 minutes) or in the microwave (8-10 minutes). 

Look what's hiding under that ugly wrinkled potato skin!

Scrape the inside into a a blender, add the honey, cinnamon and salt. Pulse for just a few seconds to get rid of any fibers from the sweet potato.

Pour the mixture in a bowl and add the lemon zest and mix in the quick oats, which will give the filling a little more body.

Now, take your you cookie dough and on a well floured surface and work it gently for a couple of minutes, just enough to give it some strength. Make silly faces, it's fun! ^_^

 Soon, I will be put in a 180 degree oven. Bummer.

Roll it down to about 4 mm thickness, turning it often with the help of your rolling pin (just to make sure it's not sticking to the working table). Start cutting out circles with a 6 cm cookie cutter (or any other size or shape you fancy!). Drop a little coffee spoon of filling on half of the circles and cover with another half. Seal the edged by pressing. I went over again with the cookie cutter, just to make it look neat.

Place on a non-stick cookie sheet, brush with a little bit of milk and optionally sprinkle with a little bit of granulated sugar. 

Bake for 16 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius, or until the edges just start to brown.

Give it a good sprinkling of powdered sugar and serve with a hot cup of coffee...

And just because they turned out so ridiculously pretty, here's more of them... 

 Perfect fit for my coffee cup

Om nom nom nom... yummy moist filling

These cookies are even better after a few hours!

Cheers all!