Sweet Potato Pie

 

Sweet potato pie is very popular in the United States. It is usually done on Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is one of those recipes that everyone expects.

One of the explanations for why it is so popular is the ease of cooking. In fact, you only need to mix the ingredients and then pour them on a base of shortcrust dough - the one that does not rise - to bake it.

However, there are some important details to keep in mind. The sweet potato is very hard and must be softened before baking. People mostly boil it but this is not the best because the tuber does not completely caramelize the sugars it contains, so you need to add more sugar than really needed. In the recipe that I detail the sweet potato is softened in the oven and in this way the amount of sugar is reduced by half.  Anyway the oven has to be turn on, so we took the opportunity to caramelize the sweet potato.

INGREDIENTS :

• 400 grams (14 oz) of sweet potatos
• 100 grams of sugar (half a cup)
• 50 grams of butter (about three tablespoons)
• 100 ml of milk (half a cup)
• 2 eggs
• Half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch of nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
• 1 sheet of shortcrust pastry

If the broken dough is frozen, we defrost it in the refrigerator, never elsewhere in the kitchen.

We preheat the oven to 190 degrees (374 F). We introduce the sweet potatoes - according to the amount we need - with the skin and well washed. I recommend that you buy a small size sweet potato because although it is tempting to get a sweet potato that weighs 400 grams/14 oz (not difficult to find) they are less sweet and take longer to make.

Make a few cuts in the skin of the tubers with the tip of the knife before putting them in the oven. When the sweet potato is done, the sugar will ooze from those cuts and that will give us an idea that they are ready.

When this happens, we extract them, check that they are soft - with a fork or similar - and carefully open them in the channel so that they cool more quickly.

When they have lowered the temperature, holding them with tweezers or a protective glove and aided by a spoon, we empty the pulp into a bowl.

In the bowl we pour the butter, the sugar, the milk, the eggs, the cinnamon and the pinch of nutmeg. If we want, we can also add vanilla extract.

First we mix all the ingredients well with a spoon or forks and finally we pass them through the blender so that a very fine dough is left.

We make a round, low-walled cake pan (about 22 cm/ 9 inches in diameter). In it we place the broken dough and what protrudes from the mold we cut with a knife.

We pour the dough in the center and flatten.

We put the cake in the oven for about 40 minutes, more or less. After time we prick with a toothpick in the center and if it comes out dry it is ready.

When you remove the cake from the oven it will decrease in volume. It is normal since it does not contain yeast.

It can be eaten warm or cold, to taste. 

In case you want to boil the sweet potato and not bake it, you should do it with the skin and for at least 40 minutes (this is indicative, it depends on the size and hardness of the pieces in question). Then it is passed through very cold water and the skin is removed. What is very important is that then you must double the amount of sugar because if you do not do this, you will find a somewhat bland cake.