Mashed Sweet Potatoes for Thanksgiving

As I have mentioned before, in our family, my sister-in-law Francine makes the Thanksgiving Day feast every year.  She always serves a version of a sweet potato bake.  Many years ago, she shared the recipe with me and it had quite a long list of ingredients.  I changed it and came up with this recipe.  It has very few ingredients, a much more intense sweet potato taste and it’s much less fat.  My boys love this and it is so easy!

13-14 large orange fleshed sweet potatoes or yams (garnet yams are great)
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted margarine
½ teaspoon cinnamon
Topping
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted margarine
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups of whole pecan halves
Place washed and dried sweet potatoes in a throw away aluminum baking pan.  Bake sweet potatoes in a preheated 400º degree oven for two hours until the sugars are bubbling out and they are very soft.  Remove them from the oven and let cool a little bit.  Peel and mash them.  Add in the brown sugar, cinnamon, and room temperature margarine and stir until well blended.
Place the sweet potatoes in two 8 inch by 8 inch baking dishes.  You could use one 9 by 13 dish as well.  Spread and flatten the tops.
For the topping, combine the margarine and brown sugar with the cinnamon with your hands or a wooden spoon.  When it is well blended, mix in the pecan halves.  Divide the topping over the two baking dishes.  Spread the topping over the potatoes evenly distributing the pecans.  Bake, covered with aluminum foil for 1/2 hour in a 350º degree oven, then uncover and continue baking until the top is bubbling and dark gold about another 10 minutes.  Serve with Thanksgiving dinner.  The whole recipe serves about 12-15  people.