Sweet Potato Puffs With Marshmallow (A 1967 Alabama Recipe)

Mrs. Josh O. Kelly, Sr. Made These

My great-grandmother owned a copy of the Huntsville Heritage Cookbook, and she used it. It's a brown hardback with a gold embossed hearth on the cover, published in 1967 by the Grace Club Auxiliary of Huntsville, Alabama, printed locally by Hicklin Printing Company, with the proceeds going to charity.

It isn't an authored cookbook. It's a collection. A club of women in one Alabama town gathered up what they actually cooked, put their names beside their recipes, and sold the book to raise money. It clearly worked, because copies exist marked as far along as the seventh printing.

Which means every recipe in it belongs to somebody. On page 182, that somebody is Mrs. Josh O. Kelly, Sr.

Sweet Potato Puffs

Mashed sweet potato, spiced and loosened with orange juice concentrate, formed into balls around a marshmallow, rolled in crushed corn flakes, and browned in the oven. A Thanksgiving side, and one you can assemble days ahead.

Ingredients, as published

  • 3 large sweet potatoes

  • 2 tablespoons margarine

  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

  • Dash of nutmeg

  • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

  • 1/8 teaspoon allspice

  • Concentrated orange juice

  • Marshmallows

  • 2 cups corn flakes, crushed

Method

  1. Boil the sweet potatoes whole until tender, then drain, peel, and mash them.

  2. Beat the mash in a mixer until it lightens.

  3. Beat in the margarine and the spices, then add orange juice concentrate a spoonful at a time until the potatoes fluff.

  4. Take a portion of the mixture, press a marshmallow into the center, and close the potato around it into a ball.

  5. Roll each ball in the crushed corn flakes.

  6. Set them in a lightly greased shallow pan and brown at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

Serves 8. To make them ahead, freeze the finished balls before browning rather than after. The book also suggests serving each puff on a pineapple slice, topped with a cherry or half a nut.

Adapted from "Sweet Potato Puffs," contributed by Mrs. Josh O. Kelly, Sr., in the Huntsville Heritage Cookbook, The Grace Club Auxiliary, Inc., Huntsville, Alabama, 1967, page 182. Ingredients as published; instructions rewritten in my own words.

What I Had To Look Up

The recipe is complete in the way recipes of this era are complete. It has a temperature, a time, and a yield, and it assumes you'll sort out the rest by feel.

Concentrated orange juice means frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed and used straight from the can rather than mixed with water. It's there as flavor and acid, not liquid, which is why she gives no measurement. Start with two tablespoons and add more only until the mash loosens and lightens.

Marshmallows in 1967 meant standard size, not the miniatures. One per puff, fully enclosed.

How many puffs. Three large sweet potatoes runs somewhere around three pounds and yields roughly four cups of mash. Against a stated eight servings, that's about eight to twelve balls depending on how generous you are.

The pan. A lightly greased shallow pan means a sheet pan or a low sided baking dish, not something deep. They need room and dry heat, since 15 minutes at 350 is meant to crisp the corn flakes and warm the centers, not bake the puffs through.

One thing to expect. A marshmallow buried in hot mashed potato will try to escape. Enclose it completely and seal the seam.

About The Woman Credited

The book lists her as Mrs. Josh O. Kelly, Sr.

That was simply how it was done. Contributors went in under their husbands' names, initials and suffix included. So her recipe survived nearly sixty years, went through printing after printing, and reached a stranger's kitchen in another century, while her own first name never made it onto the page at all.

I keep the names of my own family out of this website on purpose. Hers was left out by convention. I'm not sure those two things are as different as I'd like them to be.

What I do know is that this is her recipe, not mine, and the least I can do is put her name at the top of the page in the only form I have it.

The Whole Thing, In One Place

350°F. Lightly greased shallow pan. 15 minutes. Serves 8.

  • 3 large sweet potatoes

  • 2 tablespoons margarine

  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

  • Dash of nutmeg

  • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

  • 1/8 teaspoon allspice

  • Orange juice concentrate, thawed, about 2 to 4 tablespoons

  • 8 to 12 marshmallows, standard size

  • 2 cups corn flakes, crushed

  1. Boil the sweet potatoes until tender. Drain, peel, mash.

  2. Beat until light. Add the margarine and spices.

  3. Add the thawed concentrate a spoonful at a time until the mash fluffs.

  4. Form each portion around a marshmallow, sealing it completely.

  5. Roll in crushed corn flakes.

  6. Arrange in a lightly greased shallow pan.

  7. Brown at 350 for 15 minutes.

Freeze before browning if you're making them ahead.

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