Sweet Potato Hummus Showdown

Confession. I totally fell in love with Soupergirl's sweet potato hummus (For those of you local to DC...she has a store somewhere by the Takoma metro stop, but I catch her at the DuPont farmer's market every Sunday). Silly her, though....for placing an ingredient list on her containers :) People like me will definitely try to duplicate....and one-up :) Here it goes:

roasted sweet potato
tahini
garlic
onion
sweet paprika
olive oil
lemon juice
salt & pepper

Of course, there are plenty of variables here. How much of each? Is the garlic roasted or raw? What about the onions? What kind of sweet potato (which the overall flavor is hiiiiighly dependent on. If the sweet potato isn't very sweet, there's a huge flavor difference, taking you from a sweet-ish dip to fairly savory). And...what does she use to mix everything? Assuming not a Vitamix, as hers has a fair amount of texture to it. Whenever I run mine through the Vitamix, smooth and silky becomes the default.

soupergirl (left), me (right)

Results? Try it yourself. Experiment. I had about an even split on "whose is better?" amongst friends (in a blind taste test, of course :) Want yours a little sweeter? Maybe a dash of cinnamon and a touch of honey? More savory? Load up on the garlic. Even toss in some chickpeas if you want a more "authentic" hummus. Or...you can get really wild and crazy and give Japanese sweet potato a whirl. Check this out:

Beware with the Japanese sweet potato, though. It tends to get rather gummy in hummus form. My next attempt at this will either include more olive oil, or some chickpeas, to smooth out the texture. It was fabulously creamy mashed potatoes while still warm after roasting, but when cooling off...insanely gummy (although still delish!)