my first attempt at baking something of my own creation

So two nights ago our take out order got mixed up and we received someone else's food. We did not realize until we got the food back to the apartment and it consisted of dishes that we did not order. It was a pleasant surprise to find a helping of candied yams that I didn't intend on eating that night, but it turned out to be delicious. This game me an idea. I thought "what if I made a pastry that consisted of candied yams and possibly some other ingredient?" and so that's what I did tonight.

I tried to think of what fruits could compliment sweet potatoes. Ok I lied. I asked google what fruits go well with sweet potatoes. Some of the answers I got were pineapple, oranges, apples. I decided on oranges for this first attempt. So my plan was to create a candied yam dish, make a pie crust; and fill small cuts of pie crust with the yams & orange pieces, wrap them in the crust and roll the crust in cinnamon sugar. Then bake!
 First I used 2 sweet potatoes. I peeled and sliced them into pieces then melted 2 tablespoons & 2 teaspoons of butter in a skillet and added the sliced sweet potatoes. I mixed in 2/3 cup of white cane sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg and some salt.

I covered the sweet potatoes with the mixture and covered the skillet, reduced heat to low and let it simmer a little over 1 hour when the potatoes finally looked candied.

Egg, stop lingering in the kitchen hoping for scraps. You don't even like sweet potatoes.

Ok so while I had those brewing, I started preparing the crust. Here, I'll just paste the recipe I used for the crust:

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup water 

In a large bowl, combine flour and salt. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in water until mixture forms a ball. Divide dough in half, and shape into balls. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. Roll out dough on a floured counter. Don't over work it. Use as directed in pie recipe. 

^ok actually I got a little overzealous and didn't read the instructions thoroughly and I just threw all the ingredients into the mixer and mixed them all instantly. And I also didn't have 4 hours to wait so I left the dough in the fridge for an hour, an hour and 1/2 tops.








Fast forward. Ok here's the yams





and the orange pieces

I rolled out the dough and cut them into round pieces probably about 5 inches or so around but more "egg-shaped" than perfectly circular.

I dropped scoops of yams and scoops of oranges inside and wrapped them up and tucked the dough inside itself. I put a dish aside that I mixed white cane sugar and light brown sugar with cinnamon & nutmeg.

 

oh yeah and in some of them I slipped a few mini marshmallows ;)

Once I had them wrapped, I rolled them in the cinnamon sugar mix. About this time I remembered to preheat the oven which I set to a random temperature of 370 degrees.

and here they go into the oven

and then about 40 minutes later I took them out

But now I don't know what to call this.. They remind me of a pierogies but only sweet and dessert style. It's like the dessert version of a pierogi. Hrmm.