Money can’t buy happiness, but It CAN buy Sweet Potato Pie!
Happy Pie Season…er I mean Fall, everyone!
Even though it was a couple of weeks ago, I hope all my fellow Canadian pals had a wonderful Thanksgiving. As you can imagine, that’s my busiest weekend of the year (because we all know Thanksgiving is about the PIE, right?). I must have made a gazillion pumpkin & apple pies for the holiday this year which was fabulous. So, it was time to change it up and do something a little different.
Say hello to Pumpkin Pie’s closest cousin: Sweet Potato Pie! It’s very similar in colour and consistency to pumpkin pie but a tad sweeter and slightly more orange-y in colour. I roasted some sweet potatoes and then added maple syrup, brown sugar, butter, cream, fresh nutmeg & cinnamon.
Move over Pumpkin Pie, you’ve got a new contender! (recipe after post)
After delivering the last of the Thanksgiving pie orders, I took the rest of the holiday weekend off. It was a bit of a tough one as it was my first holiday without my parents. So there were loads of memories of our holiday family gatherings swirling around through my brain, especially since I’d been at their house painting the dining room the previous week.
Billy and I both had Thanksgiving Monday off work (actually, it was our FIRST day off together since July!!) so we took a road trip to beautiful Merrickville, Ontario. It’s just a short drive from Ottawa and the perfect spot for a hike with the pup and to check out the Fall colours (Merrickville post is coming soon!).
I may have cheated on my GF diet that weekend and had way too much stuffing and pumpkin pie. Whoops! It felt like I had the flu (although without the nausea or fatigue) and it took me almost a week to recover. Never again! (Evil gluten)
If the test for Celiac didn’t involve a camera going down your throat AND also forcing you to eat tons of gluten (the only accurate tests to diagnose celiac, apparently), I’d have done the test already. The food was delicious but just not worth the agony. If you don’t have food allergies count yourself lucky (especially during the holidays) 😀 Thankfully I know a baker who makes GF desserts so I really have no excuse to cheat hehe Now, let me tell you about this Pie…
Sweet Potato pie is a Southern favourite and a popular dessert for American Thanksgiving. It’s often made with molasses but I decided to go with maple syrup instead since I love maple with my Fall desserts. A lot of folks top their sweet potato pie with meringue but there’s no way I’m ruining a good pie with meringue (yuck!). While meringue might look pretty, I find it flavourless, personally. Thanks but no thanks. (I usually slide the meringue off my lemon meringue pie as quickly as possible haha)
But marshmallow fluff or whipped cream? Pile it on!! If you can’t do dairy, coconut whip is amazing, too. Either way, I hope you enjoy this yummy pie. It might just become your new Fall favourite as well.
Dana xo
Maple Sweet Potato Pie
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 1 Store bought or homemade 9" pie crust
- Whipped cream for topping.
- 2 1/4 cups sweet potato puree preferably roasted
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon fresh nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs + 1 yolk room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups half and half or coconut cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean extract
- 3 tablespoons regular or brown butter
Instructions
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 400F
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In large saucepan combine the cooled sweet potato puree. Mix in sugar, maple syrup, butter, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently. *This is not a necessary step, you can just mix these in a bowl instead, however cooking the purees with the sugar and spices adds a much nicer flavour to the filling. Cook for about 10 minutes, until mixture has reduced and has thickened .
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Remove from heat and add vanilla bean extract. Allow to cool.
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In large bowl, whisk eggs, half & half (or coconut milk/cream). Slowly add the cooled puree mixture and stir to combine. For best results, pour the custard mixture into a strainer over a large bowl or pot. This will prevent your filling from little eggy bits or extra-stringy pumpkin pulp. Not a necessary step but makes for a smoother filling.
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Pour the pie filling into an unbaked pie crust. If you're worried about a soggy bottom you can either blind-bake your crust first or brush egg white onto the crust and bake for a few minutes before adding the pumpkin mixture (which will create a seal between the crust and filling). Allow pie crust to cool before adding pie filling.
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Place pie on a baking sheet (in case of overflow) and bake at 400F for 10 minutes then reduce the oven to 300 and bake for another 40-45 minutes. Remove from oven when mixture is mostly cooked but looks slightly wobbly in the middle. It will continue to cook after it's removed from the oven.
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Cool pie at room temperature for at least an hour, and then place in fridge for a least a few hours to set. If you try to cut it before this time, it may be more like a pudding than pie. It's hard to do, but you gotta be patient with a custard pie. Even if you don't want to and can't wait to dig in.
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Top with fresh regular whipped cream or coconut whip, sprinkle some nutmeg on top and enjoy!
Wendy Klik says
Love the fun, artistic artwork with the crust.
Amy (Savory Moments) says
Sweet potato pie is one of our favorites and adding maple makes it even better!! Looks delicious! Also, I love pie season (which is pretty much year round in our house haha).
Kelly Lynns Sweets and Treats says
Hahahaha OMG I want to come to your Thanksgiving celebrations!! That picture is AWESOME!! And of course the highlight would be one of your famous pies! Looks sooooooo good girl! PINNED!!
Pies & Prejudice says
thanks so much Kelly! Yep, our thanksgiving dinners were always a blast. I enjoyed looking at some of the old photos I found going through my parents’ house. Will always have those fun memories. Thanks for pinning my pie as well, girl!
I’m a little behind here (surprise surprise haha) but hope you had a fabulous Thanksgiving, too! xo
Kelsie | the itsy-bitsy kitchen says
I’m a recent convert to sweet potato pie–it’s definitely my new favorite! I can only imagine how good it is with maple in the mix. Talk about fall perfection, I can almost taste it. I’m so glad you had a good Thanksgiving, and definitely glad you have those fun memories too–LOVE THAT PIC. Have a fabulous, and hopefully pie-filled, weekend, Dana!
Pies & Prejudice says
Thanks so much Kelsie, I’m in love with sweet potato pie as well. And, dare I say I might even like it better than pumpkin? haha I only recently tried it as it’s not too common up here at all and I LOVE it. It’s so good with maple syrup, a bit of a Canadian twist 😀 I’m super behind in my comments so I hope YOU had an amazing Thanksgiving too, girl. Hopefully it was filled with lotsa love, laughter and pie as well. Have a great Friday and weekend! 😀