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.
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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)