Purple Sweet Potato Pie

You know, I'm beginning to think I'm a born klutz. I sprained my ankle on Monday. YES, AGAIN. I last sprained it a couple months back. So it is seriously not funny at all.

Purple Sweet Potato Pie

Purple Sweet Potato Buns

Age is just a number. Certainly rings true when you're getting on your years eh?

Purple Sweet Potato Buns

Purple Sweet Potato Mantou (紫番薯馒头)

And this post on homemade steamed buns should conclude my mass baking sessiona with purple sweet potatoes. How unfortunate. I mean, just look at the vibrant pop of colour below! In fact, everything that I had made previously with these awesome purple sweet potatoes had a really rich vibrant deep purple hue, refer here, here and here.

Purple Sweet Potato Mantou (紫番薯馒头)

Purple Sweet Potato Choux Puffs (紅芋シュークリーム)

More purple goodness. If you are still not yet sick of my purple sweet potato endeavours, I actually have one (or maybe two) more upcoming posts...

 Purple Sweet Potato Choux Puffs (紅芋シュークリーム)

Purple Sweet Potato Roll Cake (紅芋ロールケーキ)

I had plenty of purple sweet potato cream leftover as I had made a double batch. I didn't want to use it as a filling of some sort as I had painstickingly took the trouble to strain it. I wanted showcase it, but I didn't want to make another batch of mont blancs. While googling, I found this image and I was inspired to replicate it. I have not much experience making roll cakes, so I decided to try out this recipe that looks pretty good.

Purple Sweet Potato Roll Cake (紅芋ロールケーキ)

Purple Sweet Potato Mont Blanc (紅いも モンブラン)

Friendship; it is something we all need. We invariably form relationships with people all the time. There are different stages to the sort of relationships people have with one another - be it a mere acquaintance or a close friend. I find that friendships last because two persons take the effort and time to stay in contact, update each other about their daily lives and just generally be there. It is often easy to gradually find that you might be drifting away from your friends - be it lesser time spent together or moving on with different schools/jobs.

I am thankful and humbled that I have two friends from my childhood days that I still consider my best friends. Our friendship have weathered through the years, and even though we were not (and are still not) the sort to meet up weekly, we have managed to stay in touch all these years. They have seen me throughout so much - my formative years as a crybaby kid, dorky adolescent, self-conscious young adult, to whom I am today.    We all stay relatively near each other, but as we were in different schools, and when two of us were studying abroad, we were not the sort that meet up daily, weekly, or monthly. We try to meet up whenever we could once every few months, and now that we have all graduated, it does make it easier to meet up more regularly.

2012 has been a great year. I got to travel with both of these friends - I traveled to Vietnam in January with one, and to Seoul recently in July with the other. It was quite an experience to just spend time with them 24/7. I feel that a vacation makes you learn so much more about someone whom you seem to have known all your life (and thought you know everything about them).

You might be wondering what my rambling about friendship is all about. It just happened that on my vacation recently, I happened to mention to my pal that I love sweet potatoes, especially the purple variety. It was just in passing, yet I was touched that she actually remembered this small fact. When we came back from our holiday, she actually gifted me with two boxes of sweet potatoes (one box of yellow and one box of purple). Awwww.

Needless to say, I was ecstatic (and thankful of course). And also, a little apprehensive. It's 10kg worth in total. Oh my god. How was I going to finish everything?

One thing for sure, I knew I was going to save some to make desserts. The first thing I planned to make was purple sweet potato mont blanc. I've been wanting to make it ever since I saw Evan's version here.

Purple Sweet Potato Mont Blanc (紅いも モンブラン)

Purple sweet potato chiffon

I'm back from my trip to Seoul! Lots to talk about and lots to share, I just need time to settle back into the usual routine (aka work, big sigh.).

Anyway, before I left for Seoul, I had some purple sweet potatoes in the house that needed using up. I decided to make something with them before I left for my vacation, thus, the purple sweet potato chiffon cake.

 Purple sweet potato chiffon

Dual coloured sweet potato chakin shibori

After my last post regarding the use of purple sweet potatoes, I immediately went to get more of it the next week I was near the market. In fact, I got two bags of it. Can't blame me - they were really sweet!

Sweet potatoes -  a mix of yellow and purple fleshed

Steamed milk with egg whites and purple sweet potato

I happened to find purple sweet potatoes at the wet market a few weeks back. To say that I was happy was kinda an understatement.

I'm a carbs lover (sigh, unfortunately), thus, needless to say, I love sweet potatoes.

Steamed milk with egg whites and purple sweet potato