Sweet Potato Pie

before i moved to the south, i'd never so much as thought about sweet potato pie. now it is counted among my favorites, when it is prepared properly. the first one i tasted was made by a friend's grandmother, and it won me over immediately.

this recipe is a pretty good copy of hers, although i doubt i'll ever get her exact recipe.
i'll be posting a very versatile crust recipe asap.

sweet potato pie

1 large sweet potato (1 lb of prepared mush, which is about two scant cups)
1/2 cup butter, room temp
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup milk (evaporated is nice)
2 eggs1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1 pie crust (if you're going gluten-free you can either go naked with it and grease a pan really well with shortening and dust with rice flour, or use a gluten-free flour mix for your crust.)

line a standard 9" pie pan with unbaked crust.preheat the oven to 350 f

1. boil the sweet potato still in its jacket for 45 min - 1 hour, or until fork tender but not necessarily mushy. drain and run under cold water until you can peel it without burning yourself. if your potato is stringy, you'll want to run the mixer for a bit to blend it up before proceeding. this isn't that difficult, and you can boil enough to have extra to eat with a bit of butter and nutmeg in it for dinner. don't go around shortcutting with canned yams unless you have to. they'll make the pie loose and it won't slice right. also, your pie will be too sweet unless you decrease the sugar.
2. add the butter in pats with mixer going and cream the mixture until smooth. now add everything else and mix for a few minutes.
3. pour into the shell and bake at 350f for 45m-1hr. it'll rise like a souffle and spring back slightly when touched in the middle when its done. i can almost gurantee you'll have to tent your crust and the easiest way to do this is to have a disposable foil pie tin the same size as your pan with the center cut out of it. you can alsouse tin foil strips, or fancy crust shields.

if you're not into nutmeg, you can omit it but maybe you better just cut it back to 1/4 tsp or it won't taste right.

now i know you're wondering if by some miracle i actually followed this recipe. well, of course not. i used purple sweet potatoes and evaporated milk.

next time i might even get crazy and use coconut milk...
and, if i didn't have to special order it and wait until i couldn't anymore, id've made a blue cornmeal crust. next time.