Move Over, Pumpkin—Sweet Potato Pie Is Our New Favorite Thanksgiving Dessert

Delish

Sweet potato pie is often under-appreciated and overlooked, but with this forever favorite recipe, we’re bringing her into the spotlight and making her shine.

Transcript

00:00 Hey everyone, it's Tia in the Delish Kitchen,

00:03 and I'm gonna show you how to make

00:04 an amazing sweet potato pie.

00:07 Pumpkin pie always gets all the love,

00:10 but when you're talking about that rich, deep flavor

00:13 and a luscious, velvety texture,

00:15 nothing beats sweet potato.

00:18 The first time that I made sweet potato pie,

00:19 I was actually 15 years old.

00:22 I don't remember whose recipe it was or what it was,

00:25 but I remember thinking, this is way better than pumpkin,

00:28 and also I can make my own sweet, well, make my own,

00:31 I can roast my own sweet potatoes

00:34 and not get anything out of a can,

00:36 and the flavor's way better.

00:38 So, years later, here I am, having created my own recipe,

00:43 which honestly is way better than the one I made back then,

00:46 and I'm gonna show you how to do it.

00:48 Let's get started.

00:49 We're gonna start by roasting our sweet potatoes.

00:51 You're gonna wanna make sure that your oven is at 425.

00:55 High heat, these babies are gonna bake for a long time.

01:00 Now, I know that you might be thinking,

01:03 can I just pop them in the microwave?

01:05 That'll take like less than 10 minutes,

01:07 and then I can just go with the pie, right?

01:10 Wrong.

01:11 Roasting is key for this,

01:13 because it caramelizes all those natural sugars

01:16 in the sweet potato, and it also draws the moisture out,

01:20 which makes for a more velvety, luscious texture

01:24 in the finished pie.

01:26 Definitely roast.

01:27 When I was developing this recipe,

01:28 I tried the microwave, not ideal.

01:31 This is not the time for shortcuts.

01:33 Take that time.

01:35 Before we get these in the oven,

01:36 we're just gonna poke them all over with a fork,

01:39 make some holes that will allow the potato

01:41 to vent as it cooks.

01:43 While our sweet potatoes are roasting,

01:48 we are gonna get our pie crust ready.

01:51 So, I have here a pie dough that I've made,

01:55 and it's been chilling for an hour in the refrigerator.

01:58 You can use whatever pie crust recipe that you like.

02:01 We have a great one here at delish.com.

02:04 It's the one that I always use.

02:06 But the most important thing is that you've made it,

02:08 wrapped it up, and let it rest in the refrigerator

02:11 for at least an hour before you try to roll it out.

02:14 I'm gonna roll this out into a circle

02:16 that's about a quarter inch thick.

02:18 You wanna make sure when you're rolling out pie crust

02:21 to use a lightly floured surface

02:23 and to keep moving and shifting the dough as you roll.

02:28 That ensures that your pie crust will not stick.

02:31 If you move it and lift it,

02:32 and even like honestly flip it a couple times

02:35 during the rollout process,

02:37 you will know for sure that it is not stuck

02:39 and you'll have nothing to worry about.

02:42 (upbeat music)

02:45 Now we have our pie dough in our pie dish.

02:55 We want to let it slump down to the bottom

02:59 and into the sides.

03:00 So you're gonna do this very carefully

03:02 just by lifting the edges and kind of letting it fall in.

03:05 You don't wanna pull it, you don't wanna stretch it.

03:07 You actually wanna give it a little bit more

03:10 than you think it needs

03:11 because as that dough sits in the pie dish,

03:13 it's gonna relax, all right?

03:16 And it's gonna wanna slump.

03:17 So by pre-slumping it, so to speak,

03:21 you avoid that dreaded shrinkage

03:23 that everybody always talks about.

03:24 So at this point, we're ready to trim and crimp our pie.

03:28 So what we're first going to do

03:29 is we're gonna take our scissors

03:31 and we are gonna use the scissors

03:32 to just lightly trim all of the excess around

03:37 so that you only have about a quarter inch left.

03:41 Then we're gonna take that quarter inch,

03:43 tuck it under itself on top of the lip of the pie dish,

03:48 and then we're gonna do our crimping from there.

03:51 There are many ways to crimp pie dough.

03:53 You can use a fork, you can make a braid.

03:56 There's all sorts of elaborate things

03:58 that you can get into if you want.

04:00 I am a very practical and to the point person in general.

04:03 I have perfected one version of pie crimping

04:06 that I really love and I do it every time.

04:08 It is very simple.

04:09 You are gonna take one of your hands and make a V

04:12 and you're gonna take your other pointer finger

04:15 and use that combination to create a V shape

04:19 in your pie dough.

04:21 At this point, our pie is crimped,

04:23 but we cannot bake it yet.

04:25 We have to get it in the fridge or freezer

04:27 and get it nice and chilled.

04:29 If you tried to bake this pie crust right now,

04:33 it would just completely melt.

04:35 The butter would run out of it.

04:37 It would slump, you'd lose all your shape.

04:39 It just wouldn't be very nice.

04:41 So we're gonna chill it down

04:42 so we can bake it from completely cold.

04:45 You can either refrigerate it for 30 minutes

04:47 or if you're like me and impatient,

04:49 you can shortcut it in the freezer for 15.

04:52 To blind bake, we're gonna start by lining our pie dish

04:55 with scrunched up parchment paper.

04:58 The scrunching just helps it fit better into the pie dish.

05:01 And then we are gonna fill it all the way up to the top

05:04 with our baking beans.

05:06 Baking beans do not need to be those ceramic baking beans

05:10 that you buy in the store and it's like,

05:13 I don't know, $10 for half a cup.

05:15 No, you can use whatever you have.

05:17 You can use dried beans, you can use rice,

05:20 you can use lentils.

05:22 You can even use granulated sugar if you want.

05:24 Some people like to do that.

05:26 The most important thing is that whatever it is,

05:28 it needs to be filled all the way up to the top

05:31 because the key, the reason why it's there

05:34 is to keep the sides from falling down.

05:36 And if it's not all the way up to the top,

05:39 those sides are gonna fall.

05:40 We're gonna get this in the oven at 375.

05:43 We're gonna bake it for 18 to 20 minutes

05:45 with these weights in.

05:47 Then as soon as the top is set and just lightly golden,

05:51 we're gonna take the baking beans out

05:53 and we're gonna bake it for five minutes more.

05:55 Our pie crust is blind baking,

06:01 so it's a perfect time to start working on our filling.

06:04 Here I have the sweet potatoes.

06:06 They've been roasted off and they're cooled.

06:08 And now we're just gonna peel 'em

06:10 and measure out two cups or 450 grams for our filling.

06:13 When it comes to the filling for the sweet potato pie,

06:22 there are three things that are really gonna amp up

06:25 that sweet potato flavor.

06:27 The first thing is the dark brown sugar.

06:29 Those jammy molasses-y notes of a good dark brown sugar

06:33 are really gonna boost the sweet potato's richness

06:36 and intensity of flavor.

06:38 The second thing is the vanilla.

06:40 We're using a double dose, as I like to say,

06:42 or two teaspoons of vanilla here.

06:45 And that extra little floral note

06:47 is just gonna override with the dark brown sugar

06:50 and just add to that symphony of flavor.

06:52 The third thing is nutmeg.

06:55 More than any other spiced baked good,

06:57 I think sweet potato pie especially calls for nutmeg,

07:01 along with the cinnamon, of course.

07:03 And if you're feeling extra chef-y,

07:04 you can even grate it fresh.

07:06 We're gonna add our sweet potato to the food processor,

07:09 blitz it until it's luscious and smooth,

07:11 and then we're gonna add our eggs,

07:13 heavy cream,

07:17 dark brown sugar,

07:20 butter,

07:22 vanilla,

07:23 cinnamon,

07:26 nutmeg,

07:27 and salt.

07:30 (upbeat music)

07:33 Our pie crust is out of the oven.

07:39 We've let it cool so that the pie filling,

07:42 when it goes in, won't seep into the warm crust.

07:45 That's a danger if your crust is warm, just let it cool.

07:48 Now we can get that filling into the cold crust and bake.

07:52 We've reduced our oven to 350 degrees,

07:55 and we're gonna let this bake for 40 to 50 minutes

07:58 or until it has just a slight jiggle in the center.

08:01 Because we took the time to blind bake

08:14 and then bake with the weights off,

08:16 we ended up with a perfectly done pie crust,

08:20 golden brown, top and bottom,

08:23 and not a soggy bit in sight.

08:26 Forget pumpkin pie.

08:28 This is what I'm gonna be serving

08:29 at my Thanksgiving table this year.

08:31 So for this and other fall favorites,

08:34 stick around on delish.com.

08:36 (upbeat music)

08:39 (upbeat music)

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