Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes

Late maple season, the last weeks. The sap is still running but the color has shifted — from the clear light amber of early season to the darker medium, the flavor deepening as the tree chemistry changes with the warming temperatures. I'm collecting everything because every last gallon is worth bottling, but the best of the season is behind the boiler now. The season tells you when it's winding down by the color of what it gives you.

I published the maple essay this week — the longer one I'd been writing all season. It went out on a Thursday and by Saturday it had been shared more than anything I'd written since the roast chicken post. Not fourteen thousand times, but widely enough that I spent the weekend reading messages. People finding something in the forty-year description, in the returning-every-March quality, in the thing about doing something long enough that the doing itself becomes the meaning.

A man in Scotland wrote: I have been making jam in September every year since my mother taught me when I was eight and I am now sixty-three and I have never thought about what that means until I read this. I wrote back: what does it mean? He wrote back the next day: I think it means I'm still in conversation with her. I said: yes. That's exactly it.

The pea seeds are ready. This is always the overlap moment — the maple season ending and the first planting of spring beginning almost simultaneously. Two things, one moment: something ending well, something beginning hopefully. That's the right quality for late March.

The darker syrup from these last weeks — the medium amber that comes when the trees start feeling the warmth — has a depth that the light early-run stuff never quite reaches, and I’ve been looking for the right place to put it. After a weekend spent reading messages about the essay, about jam in September and conversations with people who are gone, I wanted something unhurried to make with my hands. Twice-baked sweet potatoes are exactly that: two slow passes through the oven, a little maple stirred in where it belongs, something that takes its time and is better for it.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 1 hr 25 min | Total Time: 1 hr 40 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 medium sweet potatoes (about 8 oz each)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3 tablespoons maple syrup, plus more for drizzling
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup chopped pecans (optional, for topping)

Instructions

First bake. Preheat oven to 400°F. Scrub sweet potatoes and pierce each several times with a fork. Place directly on the oven rack and bake for 50–60 minutes, until completely tender when squeezed. Let cool 10 minutes.
Scoop the flesh. Slice each potato in half lengthwise. Using a large spoon, scoop the flesh into a bowl, leaving a 1/4-inch shell intact. Set the skins on a baking sheet.
Make the filling. Mash the sweet potato flesh with butter, maple syrup, sour cream, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and pepper until smooth and well combined. Taste and adjust seasoning.
Fill the shells. Spoon the filling back into the potato skins, mounding it slightly. Scatter chopped pecans over the top if using, and drizzle lightly with additional maple syrup.
Second bake. Return the filled potatoes to the 400°F oven and bake for 20–25 minutes, until the tops are lightly golden and the filling is heated through. Serve warm.

Nutrition (per serving)

Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes — Something Good from the Last of the Season