Recipe
🍰 DESSERT
Pen Patat
A dense baked pudding of sweet potato, banana, and coconut milk, warmly spiced, a Haitian Sunday sweet.
Haitian · easy · serves 10
prep 20 min · cook 70 min
~371 cal · 4g protein · 58g carbs · 16g fat · 5g fiber · 36g sugars · 13g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Pen patat, sweet potato bread, is Haiti's sweet potato pudding, though it is closer to a dense, moist cake than a bread. It makes the most of two ingredients that grow everywhere on the island: the local white-fleshed sweet potato (patat dous) and ripe banana.
The grated sweet potato is bound with mashed banana and , sweetened with sugar or cane syrup, and warmed with cinnamon, nutmeg, star anise, and vanilla. Raisins and a splash of rum often join in. Baked slowly, it sets into a fragrant, sticky slab.
It is a Sunday and holiday dessert, cut into thick squares and eaten as an afternoon treat with coffee. Humble, filling, and heady with spice, it is the kind of sweet that fills a Haitian kitchen with the smell of home.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and gluten-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 10
4 cups sweet potatoes, grated
2 ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup raisins
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
1 tsp lime (or lemon) zest
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
2 pods star anise
1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
1
Mix the grated sweet potato with the mashed banana and coconut milk.
2
Stir in the sugar, melted butter, ginger, lime zest, spices (including the star anise), vanilla, and raisins to a thick batter.
3
Pour into a greased dish and bake at 350F (180C) until set and browned on top, about 1 hour 10 minutes.
✎ Chef’s note
A little rum splashed in with the coconut milk is traditional and deepens the flavour, but it stays perfectly good without.
4
Cool until firm, then cut into thick squares.
Haitian Sunday tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Ouest (Port-au-Prince). Ouest is the region around Port-au-Prince and the keeper of Haiti's Sunday table. Rice cooked with beans, slow-braised griot pork, and pikliz, the fiercely hot pickled cabbage relish, sit alongside epis, the green herb-and-garlic base that seasons nearly every Haitian pot.
🗺️
Haiti. Soup joumou is drunk on 1 January and means what it is drunk for. The squash soup was associated with French colonists and became, after independence in 1804, the dish that marks the anniversary of freedom, eaten by everyone that morning. UNESCO inscribed it in 2021, Haiti's first inscription.
🌍
North America. Almost every regional cooking here records who arrived and on what terms. Enslaved West Africans brought rice, okra, black-eyed peas and the techniques behind Lowcountry and Creole food; Chinese railway labour and later Italian, Jewish, Mexican and Vietnamese arrivals built the way the cities eat; and Indigenous foodways sit underneath all of it.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Haiti
Diri Kolé ak PwaHaiti’s national rice and beans: red beans cooked into coconut-scented rice with thyme, clove, and Scotch bonnet.
Espageti AyisyenHaiti's famous breakfast spaghetti tossed with smoky herring, onions, peppers, and a hit of epis and ketchup, savory morning comfort.
Soup JoumouA golden squash soup with beef, pasta, and root vegetables, Haiti's soup of freedom, eaten every New Year's Day.
Browse all Haiti recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Oven.
Storing it: Keep chilled and covered, and enjoy within 2 to 3 days.
Make it a Haiti meal
Diri Kolé ak PwaDinner
KremasDrink
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Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Pen Patat?
A dense baked pudding of sweet potato, banana, and coconut milk, warmly spiced, a Haitian Sunday sweet.
Where does Pen Patat come from?
Pen Patat is a Haitian dish from Ouest (Port-au-Prince), Haiti.
Can Pen Patat be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Pen Patat recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Pen Patat safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Pen Patat take to make?
About 90 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 70 minutes cooking), serving 10.
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