Jennifer Garner’s sweet potato pudding is the Thanksgiving recipe your table needs

Thanksgiving is this Thursday, with many families and cooks on the hunt for the perfect dish. While there are all sorts of great ideas online, sometimes a great recipe just falls into your lap, like this sweet potato pudding, shared by Jennifer Garner on her Instagram account some years ago. 

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While Garner is primarily known for her acting work, she's also a pretty great cook, sharing recipes and videos on her social media. Over the years, Garner has shown all sorts of dishes on her social media, sharing them on her "Pretend Cooking Show," a series of videos where she informally shares a recipe and cooks it to completion. 

Garner has a soft spot for desserts, with one of the best being her Grandmother's sweet potato pudding, which she shared some years ago on her Instagram. In a video shared on her account, Garner revealed she'd initially shared the recipe with Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa show, one of her favorites cooking programs.

"Grandma calls for two and a half cups of sugar. That is so much sugar," says Garner in the video as she prepares the recipe while wearing a black top. She's careful in dispensing the ingredients and the sugar, tasting some of the batter with her pinky. 

Garner then looks at the camera, adding the remaining cup of sugar. 

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"Happy Thanksgiving! Pretend Cooking Show was invited to share a family recipe with the one and only Barefoot Contessa —easy as pie — Exie Mae’s Sweet Potato Pudding," she wrote in her post's caption. "Now my darling Ina Garten has been kind enough to share Grandma’s pudding on her special Thanksgiving episode! In case you missed it last night on Food Network— the full episode is on IGTV," she wrote. 

She then proceeded to list out the recipe, which you can check out below. 

Exie Mae Garner’s Sweet Potato Pudding

"There are tons of ways to make this less rich—but is this really the week to go crazy?" continued Garner. "Thank you, Ina, for having me. And thank you, Grandma, for a recipe that tastes like you made it and is everything cozy and delicious about Thanksgiving."

Ingredients:

• 4 medium red sweet potatoes
• 3 cups milk
• 2 ½ cups sugar
• 3 tbsp oleo or butter
• Nutmeg
• Allspice
• Cinnamon
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1 bag of miniature marshmallows

Directions:

1. Peel and quarter sweet potatoes.
2. Boil until tender and drain, then mash/beat with a beater.
3. Add milk, sugar, butter, and spices to suit taste.
4. Beat 3 eggs and add them in.
5. Tip the pudding into a buttered 9x13 baking dish.
6. Cook at 350 for about an hour, until nearly done.
7. Turn the oven to broil. Spread marshmallows on top and put back in for about 2 minutes until browned.
8. Yum.

© Getty Images/ImaZinS RF