Not Your Mother's Sweet Potato Pie

While we're still deconstructing Thanksgiving -- and mine was pretty fabulous BTW -- I should confess that the marshmallow meringue sweet potato pie that was being fast tracked to Turkey Day never made it to the head of the dessert table. At the very last minute, (and probably due to the same proclivities that kept me single for 40 years), another sweet potato dessert caught my eye and, the sweet tooth being weak, I yielded to temptation. It's what happens when I read food porn (that's any cookbook with pictures) late at night.

This recipe for Sweet Potato Tart Tatin, (that's "tart" without an "e," presumably because this dessert is as American as the sweet potato), comes from DamGoodSweet, a book of "New Orleans style desserts," by David Guas and Raquel Pelzel. Don't know them and haven't tried anything else from this cookbook but, judging by this dish, it looks promising.

If you can call a sweet potato dish sophisticated, this is it: sweet potatoes, sliced thin, layered on top of a rich French caramel, and covered with buttery puff pastry. This is sweet potatoes all grown-up and going to the prom. And the best part? I get to use one of my cast iron skillets. I always feel more authentic when I use a cast iron skillet.

A few preparation tips. Choose long, slender potatoes of relatively even width (about three medium). For slicing I prefer to use my Cuisinart equipped with the slicing disc, but a mandoline slicer would also work nicely. Unless you really want to make your own puff pastry, (get a life already), I recommend using store-bought frozen puff pastry sheets. They're quite good and nobody will know the difference unless you tell them. Finally, once removed from the heat, caramel hardens quickly. Pour fast and spread evenly. If it gets too stiff to spread, set the skillet over the burner for a few seconds to soften.

It may not be a Tart (no 'e') Tatin in the strictest sense of the word, (unless you consider the sweet potato a fruit, and who am I to judge), but it is delicious. Sweet enough, but not too sweet, (Seriously, where I come from most people would consider this a side dish.), served warm or chilled, with ice cream, whipped cream or unadorned; this is not your Mother's sweet potato pie. But it might be yours.


Sweet Potato Tart Tatin

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
3/4 cup sugar, plus 1 tablespoon for pastry
1/4 cup water
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into cubes
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1/8-inch thick rounds
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Roll out one sheet of defrosted puff pastry. On floured surface, roll lightly to blend in any seams. Cut out a 10-inch circle. Transfer pastry circle to a parchment lined baking sheet, prick all over with a fork and refrigerate until needed.

Stir together 3/4 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup of water in a small saucepan. Partially cover and bring to boil over medium-high heat. Cook, partially covered, 3 or 4 minutes or until syrup is clear and bubbling. Remove cover and cook until mixture is a light butterscotch color and the temperature reaches 320 degrees. Turn off the heat (the mixture will continue to cook) and measure the temperature until it reaches 350 degrees (this will only take a few minutes), whisk in the butter, a few cubes at a time, thoroughly blending after each. Stir in the vanilla and the salt. Pour quickly into a 10-inch cast iron skillet, spreading evenly across the bottom.

Layer the sliced potatoes over the caramel, starting in the center and overlapping in a spiraling outward circle as you go. Top with the puff pastry, tucking it in round the edges of the skillet.

Mix the egg and the milk together and brush over pastry. Then dust with the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar.

Bake about 40 to 45 minutes, until the edges are brown and the pastry is puffed and golden. Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes (up to an hour). Invert onto a large plate -- make sure it's larger than 10 inches in diameter as there will be some liquid on the bottom -- and serve.

I really, really love this "pie."

The Great Sweet Potato Pie-Off

Where I grew up Thanksgiving was most certainly not synonymous with pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie was something Yankees ate for the holiday, and if we ever saw one, (like the Thanksgiving when my best friend's mother was puttin' on the dog to impress her son's new North Carolina in-laws), it came out of a box marked Mrs. Smith's.

Come to think of it, Thanksgiving in Middle Georgia didn't mean turkey back then either -- but rather two large, fat hens perched atop a pan of soupy cornbread and biscuit dressing, and baked until the dressing was just dry but still spongy to the touch. Turkeys came later, along with instant mashed potatoes and gravy made with Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup, and then the whole holiday went to hell. But that's another blog entry.

This one's about the pies. On Thanksgiving we expected, we anticipated, and we ate that most plain and elegant of southern holiday desserts, sweet potato pie.

Not to be confused, as they invariably are, with yams, sweet potatoes are an indigenous American crop which, if the legends of our forefathers are to be believed, might have been served at the very first Thanksgiving celebration. They've been a staple in southern kitchens ever since. My maternal grandfather, who farmed well into his 70s, planted a big field of them every year, plowed them out of the ground with a mule, (the tractor "cut them up too bad"), and stored them in a mound of earth covered with a thick layer of pine straw, digging them out as needed all winter long.

There's a good chance you've never eaten an actual yam. Native to Africa, and somewhat similar to the sweet potato in shape and color, (though yams tend to be much larger), it's understandable, if not propitious, that the kitchen slaves conflated the two. They are, alas, not the same. I ate yams in Belize and found them dry, with a chalky texture, and bland. If you were expecting a sweet potato, you probably wouldn't like them either.

I'm ever the traditionalist when it comes to the sweet potato pie I serve at Thanksgiving, but my faith was shaken this year when I found a new recipe for a version of the dessert with a hint of citrus and a marshmallow meringue topping. As fortune would have it, we had a week-before-Thanksgiving potluck at the office, and I seized the opportunity to test them on the most discerning of audiences. (Except for Art. Every year he brings a Crockpot full of 'Lil Smokies floating in off-the-shelf barbecue sauce, and everybody loves them. I hate you, Art.)

In the interest of full disclosure, I used packaged refrigerated pie crusts for this experiment; not recommended for your best shot, but a reasonable option if you ever catch yourself making two pies from scratch on a weeknight. There are lots of good pie pastry recipes out there, including elsewhere on this blog, so I'm not going publish the pastry particulars. I do suggest, however, that you bake the pie crusts at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes and allow them to cool completely before filling, as a hedge against a soggy bottom. Also when baking the filled pies it's a good idea to cover the exposed crust with a pie shield or aluminum foil wrapped around the outer edges of the plate, to prevent over-browning.

For the traditional recipe I went with Edna Lewis' Sweet Potato Pie from her classic cookbook, "The Taste of Country Cooking." (For simple yet refined southern style food, you simply can't go wrong with Edna.) The second recipe comes hot off the pages of the 2011 issue of "Southern Living: Our Best Holiday Desserts." Each recipe makes one deep-dish 9" pie or two smaller ones.

Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets and make your pies!


Edna Lewis' Sweet Potato Pie Filling

2 cups cooked sweet potatoes, mashed and sieved
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (fresh grated if possible)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 medium eggs, separated
2 teaspoons vanilla
2/3 cup melted butter
1 2/3 cups milk (room temperature)

Bake the potatoes until soft (microwave is fine if you're in a hurry), peel, mash and put through a potato ricer or food mill.

Combine potatoes, sugar, salt, egg yolks (slightly beaten), vanilla and melted butter. Mix thoroughly. Add milk and stir well.

With an electric hand mixer, beat the egg whites to the frothy stage. Then stir them into the potato mixture.

Pour the mixture into the pastry lined pie plates and bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes.

Allow to cool completely. Serve plain or with whipped cream or creme freshe.


Sweet Potato Pie with Marshmallow Meringue

1/4 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
3 cups cooked, mashed and sieved sweet potatoes
1 cup half-and-half
1 tablespoon lemon zest
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (fresh grated if possible)

Bake the potatoes until soft (microwave is fine if you're in a hurry), peel, mash and put through a potato ricer or food mill.

Stir together melted butter, sugar, salt and eggs. Beat until well blended. Add sweet potatoes and remaining ingredients. Stir until thoroughly mixed.

Pour mixture into pie crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 to 55 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a rack for at least one hour, (even better, let it cool overnight), before topping with Marshmallow Meringue.

Marshmallow Meringue

3 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 (7 oz.) jar marshmallow creme

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

With an electric mixer, beat egg whites with vanilla and salt until foamy. Gradually add sugar, a bit at a time, and beat until peak form.

Beat marshmallow creme into egg white mixture 1/4 jar at a time. Beat until smooth (about 1 minute) and spread on top of cooked pie.

Bake at 400 degrees for 6 to 7 minutes or until meringue is lightly browned.

AND THE WINNER IS?!


To my surprise, and somewhat to my chagrin, the meringue topped pie was the hands down favorite. Ultimately I had to admit that I liked it best too.

That's not to say that the classic sweet potato pie wasn't good. It was very good, but with a softer, more custard-like texture than the denser and creamer, (great mouth feel!), meringue topped version. I also liked the brightness the lemon added to the flavor of the pie; and the marshmallow meringue topping, well, who could find fault with that?