Though I featured this pie last year, I think it’s worth repeating as the main pie for your Thanksgiving desserts. Sweet potato pie puts the standard pumpkin pie in its place. I admit I’m not a pumpkin pie fan. I like it but it has never sent me wild.
On Thanksgiving pasts I’ve always prepared at least three pies plus one cake for the dessert table at Thanksgiving: Apple, Pumpkin and Pecan sometimes adding lemon meringue for “lightness .” For the cake, something like a towering yellow layer cake (at least two layers) topped with a very rich ganache.
But ever since I discovered a recipe for sweet potato pie in a 2018 issue of Garden and Gun Magazine by Birmingham, Alabama pastry chef Dolester Miles, I’ve been hooked ever since. The secret to success–flavor and texture–is to bake the sweet potatoes until soft and oozing slightly and when cool slip of the skins . The flesh is put into a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat until very smooth. In Dolester’s recipe she says to beat until there are no more strings. I didn’t have that issue and the puree comes out perfectly with regular beating.
