Sweet Potato Pie
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 55 minutes
For Crust
- 120g/4ozs around 15 Malt o Milk biscuits (can use same weight of Graham crackers)
- 45g/1.6ozs or around 5 gingernut biscuits (can use same weight of Graham crackers)
- 3 tablespoons butter, melted
For Filling
- 500g/1.1lbs roasted sweet potato, weight flesh only with skin removed
- 200ml/7flozs evaporated milk (skim or regular)
- 50ml/1.7flozs pure or thickened cream
- 125g/4ozs caster or superfine sugar
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice mix (or 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
To Roast Sweet Potatoes, wash and lay on a foil or parchment lined tray. Bake at 180C/350F for 45 minutes until soft and deflated when pierced with a knife. The actual time depends on the thickness of your sweet potatoes and can take anything from 30-60 minutes.
Step 1 - First make the crumb crust. Preheat oven to 160C/320F fan forced and grease a glass pie dish (mine was a 1.4qt capacity, 22.5cm/9" diameter pie dish) with a little butter. Process all of the biscuits until very fine in texture. Thermomix directions: 15 seconds, speed #10. Make sure that the mixture is fine and there are no chunks of cookie. Mix with the melted butter until you get a dampish consistent texture. Press into a glass pie dish and make sure that the corners are not too thick. I use a glass to smooth it out. I also use the end of a chopstick to give the top a fluted pattern. It will seem like you need more butter but you don't. Bake for 5 minutes and the remove from oven.
Step 2 - Blend the sweet potato with the evaporated milk and cream in a food processor until smooth. Thermomix directions: 15 seconds, speed #8. Add the sugar, eggs, spice mix, vanilla and salt until smooth in texture. Thermomix directions: 15 seconds, speed #8. Gently pour it over the crumb crust (do this slowly so as not to dislodge the crumbs). Prick any air bubbles and slide into the oven and bake for 25 minutes. Turn around halfway and bake for another 20-25 minutes. The centre will be a bit wobbly but will set upon cooling. Cool in the oven with the door ajar. You can eat it warm or refrigerate and eat cold with some whipped cream and extra cinnamon sprinkled on top.
Storage: keep this pie covered in the fridge where it will last for up to 5 days.