Alright, so I recently went down a bit of a rabbit hole with Haitian dessert recipes. Been curious for a while, you know? Decided it was time to actually try making something instead of just looking at pictures.
Tackling Pain Patate
I settled on trying Pain Patate first. Sweet potato bread, essentially, but it seemed different from the kind of sweet potato stuff I knew. Finding a definitive recipe was the first hurdle. Looked at a few online, and honestly, they varied quite a bit. Some used white sweet potatoes, some orange, different spices, added bananas or didn’t. I ended up sort of merging a couple of ideas together.
Getting the ingredients wasn’t too bad, though finding the specific ‘Haitian’ sweet potato proved tricky in my area, so I just went with the regular orange ones I could find at the store. Grabbed some evaporated milk, brown sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, and grated coconut. I used the pre-shredded, sweetened kind in a bag – maybe fresh would be better, but that felt like another level of effort I wasn’t ready for yet.
Okay, the actual making process. First step: peeling and grating the sweet potatoes. Let me tell you, that was a workout. Used a standard box grater, and it took ages. My arm was definitely feeling it afterwards. It makes a lot of grated potato. I also mashed up one ripe banana and added that in, following one of the recipe suggestions.
Then came mixing everything together in a big bowl: the mountain of grated sweet potato, the mashed banana, the coconut flakes, brown sugar, melted butter, evaporated milk, vanilla, and the spices. The mixture looked… well, pretty wet and lumpy. Not like your typical cake batter at all. Poured this concoction into a greased baking pan.
Into the oven it went. Baked it at around 350°F (about 175°C) for well over an hour. You gotta be patient with this one. The kitchen started smelling really good though – sweet, spicy, very comforting.
The Result and Thoughts
Pulled it out when the top was nicely browned and a knife came out relatively clean. Let it cool down quite a bit before even attempting to slice it, as I read it needs to set properly.
The final product? It was dense. Very dense. Definitely not ‘bread’ like a loaf of bread, and not quite ‘cake’ either. More like a firm, moist pudding. The texture was unique, a bit rustic from the grated potato and coconut. The flavor was really nice, though! Sweet, coconutty, with that warmth from the cinnamon and nutmeg. The banana added a subtle fruitiness too.
Was it hard? The grating part was laborious, honestly. The rest was just mixing and baking. It’s quite different from other desserts I’ve made. I also glanced at recipes for Dous Makos, that layered fudge, but man, that looked way more finicky. Temperature control, layering… decided to leave that one for another time, maybe when I’m feeling more ambitious.
So yeah, that was my adventure into Haitian Pain Patate. It was an interesting experience, quite a bit of effort for the grating, but the taste was rewarding in its own homely way. Glad I tried it. Might even make it again, perhaps trying to find those specific white sweet potatoes next time to see how it changes things.
