beXnlog

Sweet Failure Pie

I'm not a huge fruit pie person. be's in love with Mrs. Smith's Apple Pie while i always prefer pecan or sweet potato pie. I also like coconut custard pie, lemon meringue pie and banana cream pie. Tonight was attempt #1 of sweet potato pie. We had a giant paper bag full of many weeks' worth of sweet potatoes (from the box) so it was a good way to reduce some.

I found 3 recipes that sounded good, and the one i had all the ingredients for was in Fannie Flagg's Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook, which i got for free somewhere a few years ago. 2 of the recipes called for canned sweet potatoes, which did me no good as i had a bag of fresh ones, but Alton Brown's recipe on FoodTV instructed me how to steam fresh chunks. I peeled and chopped up 7 sweet potatoes (3 were enough, so i saved the rest for another batch) and continued with Fannie Flag's recipe as instructed. Hers essentially had me whip the sweet potatoes, spices, butter, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla and cream together first. Then i had to whip up the egg whites into a meringue with some sugar, and fold it into the sweet potato mix. I took the hint from Alton Brown and toasted a cup of chopped pecans, spread them onto the top of the pie and then drizzled it with some maple syrup. The recipe called for a bake time of 45 minutes but it took my pie about 55 to finally set. After cooling it for a long while, we each had a slice:

The filling tasted amazing - the pecan maple topping was so crunchy and sweet, a great contrast to the smooth sweet potato. The spices were just right and the filling was sweet but not toothache-sweet. HOWEVER, the texture sucked! It was too loose and too fluffy. The crust also never browned and was kind of raw and doughy. We've used the same frozen crusts for quiche and they usually come out very good. I studied some more recipes and nothing else called for an egg white meringue thing, which is the suspected culprit according to me. SO, in a few days i'm trusting Alton Brown and trying his recipe. The pecan maple topping totally made the pie and his steaming instructions were right on, exactly 20 minutes. I guess someone as anal and scientific as him probably makes the perfect pie.

posted by beXn @ 12:05 AM