While I was in New York recently, my friend’s roommate Sheyda surprised their household with purple pancakes for breakfast. They were beautiful. She had found a recipe for sweet potato pancakes, and had used a purple sweet potato that colored the batter. After I got over how adorable they were (and the fact that three of us had each separately decided to wear purple that day…), I also found out how insanely delicious they were.

This past weekend I decided to try them out for myself, with fingerling sweet potatoes my partner brought home from the farm.

One thing we learned the first time around was to add additional flour and water to make more of a batter and less of a sweet potato mash. The recipe called for a few ingredients I didn’t have on hand, and I added garam masala to make it a little spicier. Here’s my somewhat fudged recipe:

Sweet Potato Pancakes
3/4 C. mashed sweet potato
2 Tbs. canola oil
3/4 C. milk
1 C. water
2 Tbs. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1-1/2 C. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. garam masala

The recipe called for baking the sweet potato for 45 mins at 350F. I did that, and it worked fine, but I don’t see why you couldn’t boil them instead. While the potatoes are cooking, mix together the rest of the ingredients. Mash the potato and add it to the batter. Mix together until smooth.

Heat a skillet until a drop of batter sizzles in the pan. Lightly oil the pan. Pour in the batter–the recipe says 1/2 C. at a time, but I didn’t measure. When the top of the pancake is dry, flip it and cook until both sides are lightly browned.

Top with butter, syrup, and if you have it on hand, sliced avocado. Perfect!