Published November 1, 1999.
The problem with most sweet potato pies is that they are pumpkin pies in disguise. Our challenge was to create a blue-ribbon dessert that still tasted like sweet potatoes.
Too many sweet potato pies either come in a custardy pumpkin-pie style or resemble mashed-potatoes-in-a-crust.
We wanted a recipe that both honored the flavor of the sweet potatoes and was still recognizable as a dessert.
Microwave and mash the potatoes; the mashing helps to preserve some bite in the texture. White sugar and a touch of molasses brought us still closer to the pie we were looking for. But what finally pushed the pie out of the pretty good category and into pretty amazing was melting brown sugar on the crust before adding the potato filling. The pecan-pie-like sweetness of the sugar perfectly complemented the filling, which had maintained a bright orange color that spoke loudly of sweet potatoes.
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