It is not all that often that I feel like writing only about a recipe. I usually like to share something about my day or what I am thinking or feeling and then throw a recipe in there as an afterthought. Today, however, this post is all about the spiced sweet potato blondies.

Perhaps I liked them because I had low expectations. I only chose this recipe because I realized I should probably use the small bag of sweet potatoes that have sat in my pantry (which is really just a cabinet) since February. Or maybe they just are really good.

Listen up, because there are a few things you need to know if you would like to enjoy these dessert bars just as I did. First up is the use of coconut and butterscotch chips. The half of you I did not lose at coconut, I probably just lost at butterscotch. For whatever reason, I feel as those two ingredients are love ems or hate ems. If anyone is still interested in this recipe, please, read on.

The original recipe called for chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts) and chocolate chips. I used coconut because I did not have nuts on hand. Same goes for the chips. Butterscotch I had, so butterscotch it was. Fortunately, this turned out to be an excellent choice.

In the past, I have had difficulty getting my chips to stay incorporated throughout blondie batter. They tend to sink to the bottom, and that is no fun at all. In part, a desire to solve this potential problem is why I added the coconut in the first place. I simply wanted to do all I could to ensure a thick batter up to the task of suspending flavorful bits of butterscotch within it.

Frankly, I don’t think the coconut provided any sort of flavor to the blondies. The sweet potatoes, spices and butterscotch chips took care of that. Add to this that I chopped the coconut in the food processor before I added it, and it was a mystery ingredient at best. The point I want to make here is that if you would rather stick with nuts, then by all means do so. This is dessert, and it should be enjoyed. If that means walnuts in lieu of coconut, then by all means, forge ahead with the nuts.

Just to be sure my butterscotch chips would not sink, I tossed them in a bit of flour before adding them to the batter. For all I know, this could be an old wives tail, but I have heard tossing blueberries in flour before adding them to muffin mix helps suspend them in the batter. I have never done this and my blueberry muffins have turned out just fine, but I’m throwing it out there for consideration. Because this batter is thick, I do not think sunken butterscotch chips are really an issue, but nevertheless, Iwanted to let you know.

Here’s where I like to think my baking experience actually comes into play. When I considered these bars in their original form, I couldn’t get past what I imagined would be a smooth texture. Most of the time, smooth to me equates to boring, so I wanted to change that. This is where the crumb topping comes in. Like the coconut, you certainly do not have to add a topping to your blondies. I do, however, think it lends a texture and a bite that adds to the dessert.

I baked the blondies 2/3 of the way through before adding the topping, but I really don’t think it would be a problem to add the topping from the get go. If you choose to go this route, I would strongly recommend keeping an eye on the blondies so you can tent the dish with foil if the topping becomes too brown too quickly. I have had this issue with cobbler, and it is not a good one to have.

Because I was just messing around on the topping front, I do not have an exact measurement to match the blondie yield. I halved this recipe, sprinkled on a generous amount to cover the bars, and still had some leftover. This should not be a problem as much as I bake, and the leftovers can keep in the freezer. The original recipe also suggested toasting the topping on a baking sheet in a 350-degree oven for 15 minutes, then sprinkling it over ice cream, yogurt or fruit. It’s a win either way.

Lastly, and this probably goes without saying, but the recipe assumes the sweet potatoes are fully cooked before mashing. I cooked my sweet roots by stabbing the potatoes with a fork a few times and then putting them in a 350 degree oven for about an hour. This is obviously imprecise, but I’m confident that if you wash a potato, stab it with a fork a few times, put it in the oven at some sort of temperature and keep an eye on it, it will eventually become soft and mashable. I used three small potatoes to yield 3/4 cups mashed, and the original recipe suggested less than one pound of raw potato would yield a reasonable amount.

As I sign off, (because I just can’t resist) I am going to share something more about my world, even though I started this whole post off saying I would not. As I stated above, my pantry is a cabinet. Yes, I am a food blogger with a kitchen the size of a large closet, and I have just one cabinet – albeit a fairly big one – for food. True, I have just one cabinet for pantry items because I like to fill the space I do have with pretty dishes instead of food, but that is beside the point. What I want to make clear is that  if I can bake delicious blondies in a teeny tiny kitchen, then you can bake wherever you are too. I believe in you, so get to it. Enjoy!