Sweet Potato Fries, Take #1

I've had a hard time finding a baked sweet potato fries recipe that doesn't just result in limp pieces of baked sweet potato. This recipe from The Art of Doing Stuff promised to make them crispy and fry-like, and included sriracha mayo.

You cut up the sweet potatoes, soak them, coat in cornstarch and oil, and bake.

Here's what mine looked like right before going in the oven:

And when done:

As part of a meal with crockpot jerk chicken and citrus slaw:

They were NOT a hit (except for the sriracha mayo, that was tasty). The cornstarch made the fries gluey and gave an off taste. They were definitely not very crispy. The recipe says you have to play with the cornstarch and oil proportions - and I also thought I might have cut them too thick - so I tried again on another night, with thinner fries, less cornstarch, and more oil. I also baked them longer. The results were similar - mushy and gluey.

Verdict: Didn't really work. Maybe you could do batch after batch and find just the right methods, but I'm not going to keep trying. On to the next sweet potato fries recipe....