Thanksgiving - sweet potatoes

Where would thanksgiving be without sweet potatoes? But I am not wild and exceted about overly sweetened, overly flavored sweet potatoes. I like foods to have their own flavors, accented by spicing, etc. This method takes advantage of the water already contained in the sweet potatoes - and uses no other water. However, it does use cream as the cooking liquid. Not much, but enough to get it kick started. This recipe if the full 12 person version.

Photograph by Jim Brewer

Ingredients

6T unsalted butter
6 medium sized sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced evenly into 1/4inch slices.
1 cup cream
1 spice packet (4" cinnamon, 6 cloves, 12 black pepper corns, 12 allspice berries in a cheesecloth bag)
Any left over cinnamon sugar (in this case about 1T from the cinnamon croutons)
salt/pepper to taste

Method

In a wide pot, melt the butter, place the spice packet and the sweet potatoes. Stir to coat the sweet potatoes. Pour the cream over the potatoes. Simmer gently over low heat, stirring occasionally until the potatoes are soft and mashable. This may take as long as 30 minutes.
Remove the spice packet, check the seasoning and add salt/pepper as needed.

Place in a gratin dish unvovered in a cooling oven (on its way down from 425 perhaps) to keep warm and develop a slightly dry crust.