This may fall under the no-brainer category, but I thought I would explain how we bake our sweet potatoes here at the house. It’s one of our simplest recipes, and the only thing it needs is about 45 minutes of cooking time to ensure you get that perfect potato. Additionally, we like to take five seconds out of our busy day and add a little cinnamon to our potatoes, which gives just a twinge of complexity to the taste.

Here’s a couple neat facts about sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes originated in Central/South America. Papua New Guinea eats the most sweet potatoes per capita, with 500kg per person annually. North Carolina supplies most of the sweet potatoes we find in US markets. They’re only distant cousins to the white potato, despite sharing the same name. They’re also pretty distantly related to yams (which originated in Africa), even though here in the US we often (incorrectly) label our sweet potatoes as “yams”.

You’ll Need:
some sweet potatoes
some cinnamon
some tin foil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Wash the sweet potatoes, and pierce them with a fork about four times per potato. Place them directly on the oven rack, and put a layer of tin foil on the rack below the potatoes to catch any drippings. Bake for 45 minutes and then squeeze the potatoes to check for doneness; they should be nice and squishy. If they are a little firm, leave them in for another 10 minutes.

Take them out of the oven, and cut the potato open length-wise. Sprinkle in a dash of cinnamon and toss it around with a fork. That’s it!