Copper Penny Warmth Dish (Printable)

Layered sweet potatoes, apricots, cheddar, and pecans baked to golden perfection in copper ramekins.

# What You’ll Need:

→ Vegetables

01 - 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
02 - 2 large carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
03 - 2 tablespoons olive oil
04 - 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
05 - ½ teaspoon sea salt
06 - ¼ teaspoon black pepper

→ Fruits & Nuts

07 - ½ cup dried apricots, sliced
08 - ½ cup pecan halves, lightly toasted

→ Cheese

09 - 1 cup aged cheddar cheese, coarsely grated

→ Garnish

10 - 2 tablespoons fresh chives, finely chopped (optional)

# Directions:

01 - Set the oven to 400°F.
02 - In a large bowl, combine sweet potatoes and carrots with olive oil, smoked paprika, sea salt, and black pepper. Toss until evenly coated.
03 - In four copper ramekins, arrange sweet potato and carrot slices in overlapping layers, interspersed with sliced dried apricots and pecan halves.
04 - Cover ramekins loosely with aluminum foil and bake for 20 minutes.
05 - Remove foil, top each ramekin with grated aged cheddar, and bake uncovered for an additional 5 minutes until cheese melts and browns slightly.
06 - Allow to cool slightly, garnish with chopped chives if desired, and serve warm in the ramekins.

# Expert Tips:

01 -
  • It's the kind of dish that looks like you spent hours in the kitchen, but honestly takes barely fifty minutes from start to finish, leaving you plenty of time to set a beautiful table
  • The way the dried apricots caramelize against the roasted vegetables creates this unexpected sweetness that makes people lean back and ask for the recipe before they've even finished their first bite
  • Serving it directly in copper ramekins means everyone gets their own little work of art, and there's something deeply satisfying about that personal presentation
02 -
  • The vegetables need to be sliced thin, and I mean really thin, because if they're too thick, they won't soften enough in the time the cheese needs to melt. A mandoline changed my life for this recipe.
  • The foil tent matters more than you'd think, it keeps the vegetables steaming gently in their own moisture rather than drying out or browning too fast, which I learned after making this exactly wrong the first time.
03 -
  • Toast your pecans lightly before using them, just two or three minutes in a dry skillet, and the flavor becomes so much more pronounced and nutty that it's almost unrecognizable
  • Grate your aged cheddar fresh if you can, because pre-shredded cheese has anti-caking agents that keep it from melting as smoothly or beautifully as you'd want
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