Sweet Potato Pie with Bourbon Cream (Page 769)

RECIPE #905

• Date: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 -- 2pm
• Location: Fond du Lac, Wisconsin
• Kitchen: My Mom's Apartment
• Dining Companions: Matty, Teri, Terry, Spencer, Ellen, Ellie, Sue, Anne, etc...
• Recipe Rating: A
  

I love pie. Absolutely love it. If I had to give up all but one genre of dessert, I am pretty sure pie is the one I would keep. So the fact that there are any pies left in The Book is a bit curious. This one was left because every time I went to make it I would think, "That seems like the kind of pie one should make for Thanksgiving, or Christmas." But the last few years we have celebrated Thanksgiving with my special gentleman's family, where there is a designated pie lady (or two). We celebrate Christmas Eve every year with my mom's family, and for that gathering I am the pie lady (and the cake lady!). But every Christmas I worry that maybe sweet potato pie is a little too weird for my mom's family to enjoy. So year after year I don't made this recipe for Christmas, even though it screams, "Christmas!" to me. This Christmas, though, the pie situation from The Book was dire. I could either make this pie, or one with raw egg whites (Yeah, the salmonella risk is small, but do I really want to risk poisoning my grandpa? Nope.), or one that I can't find the right size pie plate for, or a grapefruit and coconut pie (which, frankly, doesn't sound that good). So my choices were either: A) No pie for Christmas. B) Make a pie that's not from The Book. C) Repeat a pie from The Book that I have already made. D) Sweet potato pie with bourbon cream. Now those of you who know me could probably have guessed what decision I would make. No pie on Christmas would just be craziness. And choices B and C? Well, I am a girl on a mission -- I cook new recipes from The Book whenever I can. So, sweet potato pie it was! It sounded good to me, I was just worried that the words "potato" and "pie" in the same phrase would make my mom's extended family a little wary.

In retrospect, I don't know why I was worried. This pie was AWESOME! Yeah, I love pie. But I think my love of pie makes me only more likely to be critical of it. In this case, though, I wouldn't change a thing. Let me back up. So, to make this pie, I made a standard pie crust, and blind baked it. To make the filling I roasted sweet potatoes until they were tender, then peeled them and pureed them. I added brown sugar, eggs, salt, nutmeg, milk, cream, bourbon, and vanilla, and blended it all together. I poured this filling into my pie shell and baked it. I served it with whipped cream, flavored with brown sugar, bourbon, and vanilla. The result: Yum. Yum, yum, yum. Sweet potato pie looks so much like pumpkin pie that I think the two are often compared. I do love pumpkin pie, but this was easily better than any piece of pumpkin pie I have ever had. Roasting the sweet potatoes really brought out their flavor, and the other flavors of the filling: the sugar, the bourbon, the vanilla... were perfectly balanced. One thing I was worried about was the texture of the filling, since sweet potatoes can sometimes be rather fibrous. There was no need to worry though. It was wonderfully smooth. And to top it all off, some boozy whipped cream. Delicious. It wasn't the best looking pie I have ever made, but I didn't even care. It was tasty enough to make up for it. My criterion for giving an A grade is that the recipe has to be so good it is craveable. I have definitely been craving this pie for the last 2 weeks. Yum, yum, yum!

Unfortunately, this recipe is not online.