Dad’s Perfect Sweet Potato Pie
Written by joythebaker on November 20, 2009 – 2:43 am -
I have a relationship with this pie. That’s normal, right?
The smell of this pie takes me back to the days six year old me would run screaming through our lime green, hallway shaped kitchen in anticipation of pie and ice cream and the imminent holiday festivities such a dessert suggested.
My Dad has been making this pie, with more cinnamon, with less coriander, with two eggs, with four eggs, with all sorts of variations, for… oh, just my entire life.
Believe it or not, it’s hard to write about something you’re so close to. Two things here are strange. One… I’m so close to a pie. Two… I’m having trouble writing about dessert! Oooh Lordy.
Here’s what I want you to know about this Sweet Potato Pie. Excuse me while I stumble through this.
This pie is made with orange fleshed sweet potatoes. Maybe you call them yams. Maybe you call them sweet potatoes. The difference continues to perplex and bore me.
If you’re wondering what heaven might smell like, whip this pie up, throw it in the oven, wait 20 minutes then take a deep breath somewhere near the oven. There. Heaven. Coriander, nutmeg, cinnamon and brown sugar heaven.
This pie can be made with my Easy No-Roll Pie Crust. You win. I win. Pillsbury pre-made pie crust loses. It’s better this way. Trust me.
Sweet Potato Pie. It’s beauty. It’s love. If you think I’m exaggerating… then we’re obviously not friends.
This is a gorgeous holiday pie. Sweet Potato Pie is a really lovely alternative to Pumpkin Pie. The flavors are full and warm and inviting, everything you would want from a Autumn pie.
Can I say enough good things about this pie? No.
Maybe you’re not a pie baker. That’s ok. Become one now. If you take the time to make this pie, it won’t let you down. The love shines through, promise.
Dad’s Perfect Sweet Potato Pie
makes one 9-inch (you’ll have extra filling) or 10-inch pie
Note- the No Roll Pie Crust is only made for a 9-inch pie pan
2 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 granulated sugar
1 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted
2- 5oz cans evaporated milk (1 1/4 cups evaporated milk)
3 large eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla
Boil two medium sweet potatoes in their jackets in a covered pot over moderate flame, until sweet potatoes are very soft and tender.
Test with a thin sharp knife. If there is any resistence, boil longer. Knife should penetrate the sweet potatoes fast and smoothly. Remove potatoes from the water and allow to cool on a plate or wire rack.
When cool enough to handle, peel potatoes, cut into chunks and place in a large bowl. Mash potatoes thoroughly with a potato masher. There should be NO lumps.
Measure 2 cups and put in a medium sized pot with the packed brown sugar, all of the spices, salt, the 1/2 stick butter, and one 5 oz can of evaporated milk. Cook on low flame for about 5 minutes, whipping with a wire whisk until butter and brown sugar are melted down and mixture is well blended, smooth and starts to bubble. Remove from fire and let cool in pot.
In a medium sized bowl, beat the three eggs with a fork. Add the second 5oz can of evaporated milk, granulated sugar and vanilla to the eggs and continue beating until creamy. Pour the cooled sweet potato mixture from pot into a large bowl. Stir in the egg mixture. Blend thoroughly with a whisk and refrigerate mixture overnight or use immediately.
makes one 9-inch pie shell
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup (4 Tablespoon) frozen butter that has been grated on a cheese grater
1/4 cup vegetable oil (I used almond oil)
1 Tablespoon cream cheese, at room temperature
2 Tablespoons cold milk
In a medium sized bowl combine flour, salt, baking powder and sugar. Whisk together.
Add frozen butter that has been grated on a cheese grater and tablespoon of cream cheese. With your fingers, work the cream cheese and butter into the flour mixture, breaking the butter and cream cheese up until they’
re in well incorporated into the flour. Some butter bits will be tiny, other the size of small peddles. The dough may even begin to some together in a rough, sandy kind of way.
Combine the milk and oil. Whisk together. Add all at once to the flour and butter mixture. With a fork, begin to combine the ingredients, making sure that all of the flour mixture is introduced to the liquid. The mixture does not need to come together into a ball. Leave it a bit shaggy and dump the dough into a clean 9-inch pie plate. With your fingers, press the dough evenly into the bottom of the pie plate and up the sides. Try to get the dough as even as possible, but don’t worry too much about finger indentations. You can’
t fight that.
Place the prepared crust in the freezer while you preheat the oven.
When the oven is preheated, remove the crust from the freezer and add the sweet potato filling until almost full. I used a 9-inch pie shell and had a bit of extra filling.
Heat oven 450 degrees with a cookie sheet inside. After heated. pour filling into the pie shell and put on the HOT cookie sheet. Bake at 450 for ten minutes then turn oven to 325 (300 with the convection fan turned on) and bake for 1 hour more, or until edges and center are raised and puffed and the center only shakes slightly.
Remove from oven. Let cool on a wire rack for 1 hour before serving.
Tags: dad, Holiday, recipe, sweet potato pie, thanksgiving
Posted in Holiday, In the Kitchen, Pie, Recipes, Thoughts | 100 Comments »
The husband has southern roots and is a lover of sweet potato pie. I might have to whip this one up, just for him.
Can you make it ahead of time and freeze it?
Thanks for the recipe!
you sure can make the crust ahead of time and freeze it, but i’m not sure the filling should be frozen. i wouldn’t advise making the whole pie and freezing it.. that sounds like trouble.
I’ve never had sweet potato pie (I know..)and honestly not a big pie fan at all but you make me want to eat a big honkin piece of this right now!
Dear Joy,
Thanks so much for posting this delicious-looking recipe- just in time for Thanksgiving. And thank you especially for sharing such a personal post; I think many of us having strong, important memories that link food, family, emotion, and love. A beautiful post…
Hi Joy! Love this post (and this blog!). I am a huge fan of sweet potato pie, myself. I wanted to let you know that I am planning on posting a link to this, with the photo of the pie, on my Glamour magazine health and fitness blog, Vitamin G, tomorrow. Hope that’s OK! xo
go for it sarah! thanks!
I like the part where you say to boil them in their jackets.
Pie memories ~ *sigh* Good stuff. I’m going to have to try this, it’s the coriander that is the draw.
That looks delicious!
I am making this for our Thanksgiving dessert – Thanks!
This is in my oven right now. I wanted to pour the filling into a glass and drink it. Your dad is the MAN.
That is all.
What a fabulous pie! I just made the filling. It is so yum! Janet, the coriander is lovely in the pie. I was concerned too, so I reduced the amount at first and then added the rest in. This really is THE best sweet potato pie I’ve ever had. We are a pumpkin family, but there will be a SPP on our table as well from now on. Thanks for sharing. Family tradition recipes are the best!
[...] it’s sweet potato, courtesy of one of my favorite bloggers, Joy the Baker. Head on over to Joy’s blog for the recipe. (She also includes a “no roll” pie crust if you want an easier path to [...]
Is that a cutting board! A tree? Whatever it is I love it.
I have yet to make sweet potato pie, I’m really a huge pecan pie fan…oh man, pecan pie. If anyone can, it’s pecan. But I would try this recipe too, of course!
‘Kumara’ – another word for sweet potato (it’s Maori) – just to add to your perplexed and bored state of existence.
Oh, this looks delicious! I’ve never made a sweet potato pie. It’s time to try it out!
Thanks for sharing your dad’s recipe!
Joy the Baker you are the Bomb! I love your site! The no roll pie crust is fab! I used it making my very own custard pie! Love, Kay
I made this pie last night to take home with me tonight! It looks awesome. I AM SO EXCITED TO TRY IT. …not so sure it is going to make until after dinner tomorrow…
Thanks so much for sharing!
OK…I’m so excited, going to make this for tomorrow… Thanksgiving!
I love to eat every type of thing related to pies but have a serious phobia of making all things crust. And yes, I’ve tried. Repeatedly. But I just felt a little surge of hope. I will definitely be trying this no-roll crust. I’m also going to assume that this crust will be an absolute success because I’m just an optimistic like that. If not, I’ll come back and cry. =P
And now my little brain cells are firing off. Such a dangerous thing. Would you happen to have a similar no-roll crust that I could use for savory dishes, like quiche and such? Off to do a search.
Love your blog! If you can inspire jaded me to try making a crust one more time then you’ve certainly done your job well. Off to see what other treasures you have here. Happy Thanksgiving!!
The pie crust is in my freezer waiting or the oven to heat up and the filling is in the fridge. Thanks so much for sharing this recipe. Happy Thanksgiving!
Well, this Thanksgiving I can say that I am thankful for this pie recipe. It is so delicious!
I ended up having enough filling for two pies, so I just doubled the crust recipe and baked two pies. I’m a little embarrassed to say that my husband and I ate (a little over) half of a pie that same night. We could not help ourselves. This pie will certainly become a holiday staple in my house from now on.
Thanks!
[...] made you Sweet Potato Cookies with leftover mashed sweet potato my Dad’s infamous pie. I mixed up the dough. I portioned out little walnut size balls. I popped them on the baking [...]
Wow! I made this today for our day-after feast. I did not know what coriander tastes like, nor have I ever had a sweet potato pie before.
After the first bite I said “WOW!” I don’t think I ever need to make a pumpkin pie again (as I wasn’t a huge fan to begin with). This pie really takes the cake! Thanks for a delicious recipe!
And the filling could probably make 2 ’slightly-less-full’ pies than one really full with a little left over. I have enough filling to do a mini pie, so I will. Soon. Because the one I have isn’t going to last long!
The crust is awesome, too, because it doesn’t call for shortening–which I don’t own. So thanks for an all-around WINNER!!!!
Made this pie for Thanksgiving and it was YUMMY!!!!!!!!
It is in the oven right now. From the aroma in the kitchen I can only say genius !
You know you are a baker when you assume you have all of the ingredients, then panic when you did not get evaporated milk at the store.
Oh, wait, I have some.
Thanks for the recipe!
Joy, the crust was amazing. I hate rolling pie crust and I hate the lard and fat and unpronounceable stuff in the store bought crusts. This no roll crust is the best! With pumpkin pie – outstanding! With apple pie and a crumb crust – absolutely delicious! Thank you.
Hi Joy!
Baked this yesterday and within 10 minutes of cutting the first slice half of it was gone. Most of it into my belly, in fact, though the rest of the family helped somewhat. Thank you so much, it tastes amazing! However, I did have one issue, which is that the centre of the crust was soggy…is this a problem with my oven or with the way I made my crust?
This is the best Sweet Potato Pie I have ever tasted!!! My husband WON”T eat pumpkin and I am always looking for a sweet potato recipe. I did a trial run on the Monday before Thanksgiving…. we ate half of the pie while it was still warm. I was a little skeptical at first about using coriander but it goes perfectly, and I considered cutting back on the sugar because it seemed a little too sweet. The next day when we had more of the pie it was perfect… just sweet enough, maybe because it had cooled. Thanksgiving morning I made 2 more and everyone LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it. We made a lot of sweet potato converts that day. Thanks for sharing such a wonderful recipe.
Sweet potato, cinnamon, no-roll crust, … this is pie heaven !!
Thanks for sharing (and thanks to Dad as well !)
BTW “1/2 granulated sugar” in the filling ingredients, I guess that means “1/2 *CUP* granulated sugar”, yes?
sorry Javier! yes… 1/2 cup! granulated sugar.
[...] of deliciousness, i can’t share the secret. what i can share, however, are pictures and a link to joy the baker’s excellent sweet potato pie recipe. [...]
This is wonderful. I’m not sure why everyone is so skeptical of the coriander? I really loved the crust! I made 2 slightly less full pies with this recipe. I will be making again tonight and trying to make about 1/3 more filling so the 2 are more full. Some of the measurements were a little difficult to do that math on, but I think it’s gonna be good.
Hi Joy, I have really good time since I found your blog and recipe. Today i made sweet potato pie and crust came out kind of hard,,like cookie or tart shell,,,I guess it may cause of pie pan it self better to use for tart however it was shortage of pylex in my kitchen.
Do you think it is the main reason of hard shell? (I mean glass pie pan or non stick tart pan )
or anything I should know extra to do to make little bit moist??
One more thing,, could you post your perfect tart recipe??
(I know I’m going to love it!!)
Made your dad’s pie and no roll crust for Christmas — OMG it was so good — will be a family fav for ever. Its was so easy to make — Thanks for the yummy recipies, keep up the good work
[...] interested?) and the filling is from fellow blogger Joy the Baker – check out her recipe for Sweet Potato Pie. Filed under Comfort Food Tagged Holiday, Pie Comment (RSS) [...]