Dive into the nostalgic flavors of our Sweet Potato Pie recipe. This classic dessert combines the velvety smoothness of sweet potatoes with a buttery, flaky crust, creating a heavenly treat that will transport you to a world of sweet moments. Get ready to indulge in the ultimate comfort food with this timeless and irresistible pie.
Indulge in the timeless appeal and comforting flavors of our Sweet Potato Pie. It's a classic dessert that offers a rich and velvety filling, combined with a buttery crust for an unforgettable taste experience.
Why you'll love this
Rich and Velvety Filling
The star of this pie is the rich and velvety sweet potato filling. With each bite, you'll experience the lusciousness of the sweet potatoes, perfectly spiced and sweetened to create a truly satisfying dessert.
Irresistible Crust
This recipe ensures a buttery and flaky crust that serves as the perfect vessel for the creamy sweet potato filling. The crust adds a delightful texture and complements the filling, enhancing the overall pie experience.
Comforting and Nostalgic
Sweet Potato Pie is the epitome of comfort food, evoking warm and nostalgic feelings. It's a dessert that takes you back to cherished moments, making it a perfect choice for holiday gatherings, family dinners, or any occasion that calls for a touch of nostalgia.
Versatile and Adaptable
This Sweet Potato Pie recipe can be customized to suit your preferences and dietary needs. Whether you want to add a hint of cinnamon for extra warmth or make it gluten-free by using alternative crust options, this recipe is versatile and can be adapted to your liking.
Ingredients and substitutions for the best Sweet Potato Pie
- Plain flour: This is the best option for that flaky pastry, cake flour is not recommended here. If you live in the UK, see the FAQ's section as to a the type of flour to use here.
- Butter: Cold and cubed helps you press it into your flour without heating it up too much as you work it. Make sure that butter is fully coated with flour so no puddles form during baking.
- Ice water: Ice water helps ensure your pastry comes together quick, resulting in that perfect texture.
- Sweet potato: You'll only need a small sweet potato for the puree here. Though orange sweet potato is the most common; you could choose a purple one in equal measure for a striking color to your pie.
- Eggs: As well as adding structure to the sweet potato custard, the eggs will bind everything together, so are essential.
- Brown sugar, maple syrup and honey: The three types of sweetener here add a depth of flavor and allow a softer texture to the custard for a smooth and fall flavored pie. The brown sugar could be substituted with raw sugar. The gram weight of the maple syrup is 79 grams.
- Spices: The ground cinnamon and nutmeg elevate the filling. You could substitute the nutmeg with allspice in equal measure.
- Heavy cream: The foundation of our custard filling. It's also great to top our pie with whipped cream. The gram weight of the heavy cream equals 120 grams.
- Walnuts: The crunchy maple walnuts give this pie a twist, without deviating too much from traditional with pecans making a great replacement in equal measure.
See recipe card for quantities.
How to make Sweet Potato Pie:
For the dough, place the flour and salt into a bowl and stir to combine.
Add the cubed butter and toss through the flour to coat completely in flour.
1
Press each cube between your fingers to thin out and continue tossing through the flour, trying to ensure the butter becomes no smaller than the size of peas.
Add in a little of the ice water and stir to combine, continuing 1 tablespoon at a time until a dough forms, but ensuring it’s not too sticky, but that there are no dry portions in the base of the bowl.
Press firmly into a disc, wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 220C/425F.
Lightly flour your surface and both sides of your dough and roll out to ¼ inch thickness.
Flipping the dough and adding a small sprinkle of flour, where necessary.
2
Roll the dough around your rolling pin and place into your pie dish.
Pressing therein and trimming the edges, folding ½ inch of the dough under the edges and pinching firmly.
3
Return the dough to the fridge for 20 minutes to chill.
Remove, pierce with a fork all over and lay greaseproof paper to cover the entire pastry.
Fill with baking beans or rice right up to the edges of your crust.
Bake for 20 minutes until the edges are golden, remove the baking beans and continue to bake until golden all over, approximately 10 further minutes.
Remove and allow to cool completely.
Place the puree, eggs, sugar, syrup, spices and cream in a bowl and whisk to combine or mix with a stick blender until smooth.
4
Pour into the pie shell and smooth out the top of the pie.
5
Place in the oven and bake for approximately 45 minutes or until it no longer jiggles in the center.
Remove and allow to cool completely at room temperature before placing in the fridge to chill.
To make the topping place the maple syrup, walnuts and nutmeg into a pan and cook on medium until bubbling. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Decorate the top of your pie with a little whipped cream and sprinkle over the maple walnuts.
Slice it up and serve.
Equipment needed to make this
Rolling pin: A rolling pin will help you achieve a nice consistent pastry, however, you could substitute a wine bottle for similar results.
Pie dish: The pie dish used here is 18 cm / 7 inch which is around average, though a substitute would be a deep tart tin.
Fork: To pierce holes in your pastry before baking, you'll want to have a fork handy!
Greaseproof paper: To line your pastry before filling with baking beans.
Baking beans: Baking beans help keep your help to keep the pastry in shape as it bakes. Uncooked rice is a great substitute, but make sure you have sufficient to come right up to the edges of your crust.
Mixing bowl: A medium mixing bowl is needed for the homemade pastry and sweet potato custard filling.
FAQ's for the best Sweet Potato Pie
Plain flour in the UK has a lower protein amount which contributes to the dough strength, type of crumb and texture of your pastry, in this case. Plain flour in the Unites States for example has the same level of protein as Bread flour in the UK so the best flour to use here will be 175 grams / 1 ¼ cups bread flour. This will help you ensure a flaky pastry and making it easier to shape without being flimsy which is often the feeling of unbaked dough.
You can if you are short on time with shortcrust pastry being the best option to substitute for homemade flaky pastry.
This Sweet Potato Pie recipe stands out for its classic and timeless appeal. The combination of the buttery and flaky crust with the luscious sweet potato filling creates a pie that is rich in flavor and evokes a sense of comfort and nostalgia.
Absolutely! Our Sweet Potato Pie recipe is versatile and can be customized to suit your preferences. You can adjust the spices, add a hint of vanilla extract for extra flavor, or even experiment with different crust options to make it your own.
Yes, Sweet Potato Pie is a fantastic dessert choice for special occasions. Its comforting and nostalgic flavors make it a perfect addition to holiday gatherings, family celebrations, or any event where you want to create a warm and memorable dessert experience.
To achieve a flaky crust for your Sweet Potato Pie, it's important to keep the ingredients cold, use cold butter, and handle the dough gently. Additionally, blind baking the crust before adding the sweet potato filling can also help maintain its flakiness.
Yes, this Sweet Potato Pie recipe can be made ahead of time. It is a great make-ahead dessert option for busy occasions. Simply bake the pie in advance, let it cool, and refrigerate until needed. This allows the flavors to develop, and the pie can be served chilled or at room temperature.
Due to the heavy cream in the filling, sweet potato pie does need to be kept refrigerated when not being served.
The recipe for the pastry was tested 5 times to get the ratio of butter and ice water correct for the pastry to be buttery and flakey, without being stiff or too buttery.
The filling was tested 3 times to get the final result we see in the recipe below. The tests included differing ratios of sweet potato puree to ensure the flavor is nice and strong, but not overpowering the creamy texture a sweet potato pie is known and loved for. It was also tested with varying ratios of spices and milk instead of heavy cream which made the filling a wee bit lighter, but the moisture in homemade sweet potato puree makes the heavy cream a better filling ingredient.
More pie recipes you'll love
Sweet Potato Pie
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 55 minutes
- Total Time: + chill time 2 hours 25 minutes
- Yield: Serves 10
- Category: Pies & Tarts
- Cuisine: American
Description
This Sweet Potato Pie recipe includes a flaky pastry base with a fantastic custard filled pastry pie. There's a reason this is so famous in North American borders!
Ingredients
Pastry
150 grams / 1 ¼ cups plain flour
¼ teaspoon sea salt
110 grams / 3.88 ounces butter, chilled and cubed
62 milliliters / ¼ cup ice water
Sweet potato filling
423 grams / 1 ⅔ cups sweet potato puree
2 eggs, room temperature
140 grams / ⅔ cup light brown sugar
80 milliliters / ⅓ cup maple syrup
40 grams / 2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
125 milliliters / ½ cup heavy cream
Topping
¼ cup walnuts, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons maple syrup
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
To serve
Whipped cream
Instructions
Pastry
- For the pastry, place the flour and salt into a bowl and stir to combine.
- Add the cubed butter and toss through the flour to coat completely in flour.
- Press each cube between your fingers to thin out and continue tossing through the flour, trying to ensure the butter becomes no smaller than the size of peas.
- Add in a little of the ice water and stir to combine, continuing 1 tablespoon at a time until a dough forms, but ensuring it’s not too sticky, but that there are no dry portions in the base of the bowl.
- Press firmly into a disc, wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 220C/425F.
- Lightly flour your surface and both sides of your dough and roll out to ¼ inch thickness.
- Flipping the dough and adding a small sprinkle of flour, where necessary.
- Roll the dough around your rolling pin and place into your pie dish.
- Pressing therein and trimming the edges, folding ½ inch of the dough under the edges and pinching firmly.
- Return the dough to the fridge for 20 minutes to chill.
- Remove, pierce with a fork all over and lay greaseproof paper to cover the entire pastry.
- Fill with baking beans or rice right up to the edges of your crust.
- Bake for 20 minutes until the edges are golden, remove the baking beans and continue to bake until golden all over, approximately 10 further minutes.
- Remove and allow to cool completely.
Sweet potato filling
- Place the puree, eggs, sugar, syrup, spices and cream in a bowl and whisk to combine or mix with a stick blender until smooth.
- Pour into the pie shell and smooth out the top of the pie.
- Place in the oven and bake for approximately 45 minutes or until it no longer jiggles in the center.
- Remove and allow to cool completely at room temperature before placing in the fridge to chill.
Topping
- To make the topping place the maple syrup, walnuts and nutmeg into a pan and cook on medium until bubbling. Remove from the heat and set aside.
- Decorate the top of your pie with a little whipped cream and sprinkle over the maple walnuts.
- Slice it up and serve.
- Dig in!
Notes
- Sweet potato: You'll only need a small sweet potato for the puree here. Though orange sweet potato is the most common; you could choose a purple one in equal measure for a striking color to your pie.
- Brown sugar, maple syrup and honey: The three types of sweetener here add a depth of flavor and allow a softer texture to the custard for a smooth and fall flavored pie. The brown sugar could be substituted with raw sugar. The gram weight of the maple syrup is 79 grams.
- Walnuts: The crunchy maple walnuts give this pie a twist, without deviating too much from traditional with pecans making a great replacement in equal measure.
- Spices: The ground cinnamon and nutmeg elevate the filling. You could substitute the nutmeg with allspice in equal measure.
- Flour in UK for your pastry: Plain flour in the UK has a lower protein amount which contributes to the dough strength, type of crumb and texture of your pastry, in this case. Plain flour in the Unites States for example has the same level of protein as Bread flour in the UK so the best flour to use here will be 175 grams / 1 ¼ cups bread flour.
- You can use store-bought pie crust for your pie: If you're short on time or prefer convenience, you can certainly use store-bought pie crust for your Dutch Apple Pie.
- Making this ahead of time: Simply bake the pie in advance, let it cool, and refrigerate until needed. This allows the flavors to develop, and the pie can be served chilled or at room temperature.
- Customize the filling flavors: You can adjust the spices, add a hint of vanilla extract for extra flavor, or even experiment with different crust options to make it your own.
- The pie does have to be refrigerated: Due to the heavy cream in the filling, sweet potato pie does need to be kept refrigerated when not being served.
Recipe by Roamingtaste
Nutrition
- Calories: 369 calories per serve
Keywords: sweet potato baking, Southern pie, American baking
Subscribe to receive a free weekly newsletter using seasonal produce as well as exclusive content!
Leave a Reply