Nutrition Heretic

In 7th grade, when I first had pumpkin pie, I felt a sort of pity for people who liked it. “Such a sorry, sorry excuse for holiday pie,” I thought to myself, shaking my head. It was further baffling that the girls at my school had never even heard of sweet potato pie, which I had never realized was more of a southern thing. I just turned 11 and was born into a Jamaican family in New York. How was I to know?

#MontessoriKid

This post contains affiliate links through which I may receive a small commission

While I eventually learned to make an acceptable version of pumpkin pie thanks to Julia Child, my heart still belongs to sweet potato pie. Of course, the two are quite similar with their carotenoid-influenced orange color and warming fall spices such as allspice and cinnamon. But sweet potato is starchier, which I personally find more comforting and harmonizing with the warm spices. Pumpkin pie, by contrast, is more akin to custard. This isn’t a bad thing. I just don’t find it as moreish.

Another observation is that pumpkin pie often makes a heavy-handed use of cloves, which are great at killing parasites, but quite overpowering used in this way. I was never taught to make sweet potato pie with cloves at all, so still leave it out to this day.

I learned to make it the southern way with evaporated milk. That has been swapped out for crème fraîche or simply heavy cream as is available. A little salt added to the filling, which could come from salted butter, brings out a richer flavor from the cream.

Just like so many things I make during the holidays, this recipe is doubled because I like to have #EmergencyPie on hand in the freezer. You can keep it for Christmas or eat it whenever the first one is finished.

Let’s start with the crust, which is best baked blind to maintain its integrity so it can properly hold the otherwise soggy filling. Here I’m using pastry flour, which makes it crispier and crunchier, whereas regular or 00 flour makes it flakier. I find 00 easier to work with in general, especially when the kitchen gets hot and humid. But they both yield excellent results.

Like my shirt? Get yours here.  And check out our store for my top picks this season.

It is important when making crusts to use your fingertips, not the palm of your hand. By comparison, your fingertips are cooler, which keeps the butter pieces from fusing together. If the butter melts, you’ll get a hardened brick instead of the crispy or flaky attributes you’re looking for. You can also ensure the butter stays cold by using flour that has been stored in the fridge or freezer and using ice water to bring the entire thing together.

You can further minimize contact with the butter by making sure its frozen or at least hardened in the fridge and then grating it with a mozzarella cheese grater, and tossing some flour onto each layer of butter. The cold flour will keep the butter cold and provide a buffer from your fingers and keep them from getting too sticky.

Lard is more forgiving, and seems to work fine even when practically liquid, but I still like all my ingredients cold, so usually it has been refrigerated. You can add it in one tablespoon clumps then break it up with your fingertips.

In an attempt to reduce the number of dishes to wash later, I mix it up directly in the pie dish. Alternately, you could mix it in the bowl you will eventually use to blend up the sweet potato filling as any remaining flour and fat won’t harm it in any way.

For the filling, don’t peel them, if you are covering them with water to boil or all the flavor and sweetness will all dissipate into the water. Plus it will make the potatoes soggy. Once boiled and slightly cooled, the skins slide or pull off easily with your fingers.

If you’ve already peeled them by the time you read this, I would suggest roughly chopping the potatoes and steaming them by using about an inch of water in the bottom of a covered pot.

Whichever way you cook them, roughly mash them before adding to the stand mixer. An electric mixer is important for two reasons:

1. to remove lumps
2. the beater(s) will catch stringy bits of sweet potato

Both of these things will improve the dining experience.

Since sweet potatoes vary in sweetness, taste the batter before pouring into pie shell. Add more sweetener, if necessary.

The potatoes might take up to about 30 minutes to cook until fork tender and will need some time to cool before you can handle them. So make your crust while they boil, removing them from the water to cool when done. By then you should be ready to pop your crusts in the oven for 10 minutes, while you peel the potatoes and beat them into the filling.

Ingredients For The Crust:

• 2 1/2 cups cold flour from the fridge or freezer
• a pinch of sea salt
• 1 cup/2 sticks frozen butter or 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup rendered lard
• about 1/2 cup ice water (with optional tsp lemon juice for flavor)

How to Make the Crust

Set your oven to 300ºF / 150ºC / Gas mark 2.

In one of your pie dishes, mix sea salt with flour, then grate butter directly into it. Toss gingerly to disperse the fat evenly, breaking the lard chunks into smaller pea-sized bits.

Slowly pour the ice water over the flour and butter a little at a time, incorporating the flour still using your fingertips. Relative humidity makes the actual amount of water you need slightly different each time. You’re looking for a mass that holds together without being too crumbly or sticky. Within reason, you can toss in a bit more flour with the same delicate hand, if you accidentally use too much water.

If using all butter, I usually have to cover and refrigerate it before rolling it out in my hot kitchen. Lard is far more forgiving and makes up for butter’s lack of integrity under such conditions.

Roll out each pie crust and lay into your pie dishes. Be careful not to make it too thin. If you accidentally rip a hole, use a piece of crust from the edge that may seem in excess to plug it up.

Using your fingertips or a fork, press the edges in whatever decorative pattern you can dream up. Poke the bottom and sides of the crust with the tines of a fork. This will allow air to escape during the first baking so that the dough holds its shape.

Cover dough with a piece of parchment. Line bottom of parchment with baking stones or dried beans (you can keep the beans solely for this purpose and reuse them), then bake the crust for 10 minutes.

While the crust is baking, make your sweet potato filling.

Ingredients For Making Sweet Potato Pie Filling

• 3 lbs sweet potatoes
• 1/2 cup butter
• 4 eggs
• 2 Tbsp cinnamon
• 1 Tbsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• large pinch sea salt
• 1/4 cup honey or 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1 cup crème fraîche
• 1 Tbsp blackstrap molasses
• 2 10″ pie dishes

How to Make Pie Filling

Poke each of the washed sweet potatoes (leave skin on!) with a fork in about 4 places all around to ensure even cooking. Place in a pot with water to cover. Boil for 10-30 minutes depending on the size of your sweet taters.

Once it can be pierced by a fork or steak knife effortlessly, pull them out of the water and put them on a plate or bowl to cool off. When you can handle them comfortably, peel off skins with your fingers. If you don’t have time to wait, just use a fork to hold the potatoes down, then scrape off peel with a paring knife.

Place peeled potatoes in your mixer bowl and mash. Add butter and mix using the wire whisk beater to ensure butter has melted into the potatoes. Now add remaining ingredients. Beat until smooth.

Taste for sweetness and spice balance. Adjust to your preferences.

By now, your crusts should be ready to fill. Turn up oven to 350ºF/175Cº/gas mark 4 after removing them.

Pour half of the filling into each crust. Give pie a quick shake to help filling spread out.

Place pies back in oven. Bake for about 40 minutes or until a toothpick or pointy knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Admittedly, I’m not interested in presentation that much, hence the knife.

In that vein, you can see that my pies cracked. This could’ve been prevented by cooking them longer at a much lower temperature. I’ve got other things to worry about because taste always trumps presentation.

If your top cracks and this bothers you, you could always chill the pie, then decoratively coat the top with whipped cream.

You do you. Enjoy!

Please note: the crust and pie filling printable recipes are in 2 sections below.