How to Bake a Sweet Potato

How to Bake the Perfect Sweet Potato

Preheat oven to 450º
Put a foil* lined baking sheet into the oven on the lowest rack.
*parchment works well, too

Place sweet potatoes onto the rack above the baking sheet.

Don't poke any holes into the potatoes, just place on the rack.

Set timer for 20 minutes.

When the timer goes off, decrease baking temperature to 350º

Bake for an additional 60 minutes. Set your timer again.

Depending on the size of your sweet potaotes you may want to increase or decrease this time, but I've found that an hour is just about right for two large sweet potatoes.

When the sweet potatoes are done a knife will easily slip through the potato. The skin may be tough to get through, the potato itself will be soft.

The exterior of the potato will look like this 

You can poke at the skin and it feels puffy. I poked at it several times!

That pocket forms because of the high temperature at the beginning of the baking cycle.

The skin literally peels off in a matter of seconds. The inside has been steamed and baked at the same time, so it stays really moist without being wet or dry. Ooooh it is fabulous.

I bake these two at a time, eat part of one potato for my meal and save the rest in the fridge. These microwave real easy after baking, too - just scoop out your portion, nuke for 30 seconds to one minute and eat!

Thanks Mom! They turned out great!