Today was a wonderful day! Today was my first day of freedom! I am done selling shoes!!! Being six months pregnant, I can hardly put my own shoes on, let alone the shoes of customer after customer. But I can still make pie!
Today I made a sweet potato pie with a cream cheese crust and toasted marshmallow topping. It is very similar to a pumpkin pie, but reminiscent of baked sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows. Have you ever done that? Bake a sweet potato, cut it open, and top with marshmallows, brown sugar, or caramel sauce? It is delicious.
If you have a favorite pie crust, go ahead and use it. Any kind of pie crust will work just fine. I actually made a mistake with my crust. I decided to wait until after I chilled it some more before shaping the rim and make sure it was up far enough in the pan, but after chilling it I totally spaced it and stuck it straight in the oven. It kind of shrunk down a little bit, making it even worse. I tried to fix it, but the crust in the picture isn’t pretty at all because I simply forgot to shape the edges. (It still tasted amazing!) Not to mention, I slightly overcooked the crust. I’m a little spacey these days. I also tried to put away my Bosch mixer in the fridge, today. It didn’t fit very well. My advise to you: this pie crust is really yummy and kind of tangy, but make sure to let it hang a little over the edge of the pie pan. And put some tin foil over the pie half way through baking to prevent the crust from overcooking. For tips on how to avoid shrinking crust and for achieving a flaky crust visit my perfect pie crust tutorial.
Ingredients:
Cream Cheese Crust (Click for Perfect Pie Crust Tutorial):
- 6 TBSP. cold butter, cut into small pieces
- 2 oz. cold cream cheese, cut into small pieces
- 1 1/4 C. all purpose flour
- 1 TBSP. sugar
- 1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
- 2-5 TBSP. ice water
Sweet Potato Pie Filling
- 2 C. sweet potato puree
- 1 C/ evaporated milk
- 2/3 C. sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 C. mini marshmallows (or more if you want!)
Directions:
For the Crust:
1. Cut up the butter and cream cheese into small bits. Keep them very cold. I like to start with them frozen. Set aside in freezer.
2. In a mixing bowl, mix together flour, sugar, and salt. Sprinkle the butter and cream cheese over top. Use a pastry cutter to blend together the flour and butter mixtures until it is slightly shaggy and the butter is broken down quite a bit. There will still be small bits of butter and cream cheese through out.
3. Add the vinegar and 2 TBSP. of ice water. Use a rubber spatula to mix the dough until it starts to come together. Add more water, a little bit at a time, until the dough just comes together. You can use your hands at this point. Gather into a ball and place on a sheet of plastic wrap. Pat the dough into a disk, wrap, and chill in the fridge while you make the filling, but the longer you chill it, the better. A couple hours is best.
4. Using a little bit of flour for dusting, roll out dough to fit a 12 inch pie pan. If it’s too sticky, add more flour. Let dough rest for 5 or ten minutes. Place dough in pie pan and hang dough over the edge and crimp. Let chill in freezer for another 30 minutes or so. Preheat oven to 350 F.
5. Make any decorations you would like into the edge of the crust, just make sure it comes all the way up and over the edge of the pie pan a bit because it will shrink a little. Poke air holes with a fork in the base of the crust. Place some tin foil over the crust and fill it with some dried beans. Bake for 20 minutes, remove beans and foil, and bake for about 10 minutes more.
For the filling:
1. Whisk together the sweet potato puree, evaporated milk, sugar, eggs, and spices in a bowl. Pour into crust. Bake until the center is just barely set, about 1 hour. Cover the edges with tin foil part way through, so they dont burn. Let sit for at least 20 minutes so it can finish setting.
2. Top generously with the mini marshmallows and toast them with a culinary torch. Or just broil in the oven until they are golden brown. Delicious hot or cold.
Recipe adapted from 2011 Thanksgiving edition of the Food Network Magazine.
