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And while she loves them with ice cream or other double-ups, there’s one pie that can stand on its own delicious merits.
The holidays are upon us and I couldn’t be happier. There’s one reason I so love this time of year. It’s not the decorations. It’s not the festivities. It’s not even the presents or the parties. I love the holidays because it’s the one time of year you can count on there being multiple desserts in the house.
There are homemade cookies and cakes, candies and puddings. Then there’s my favorite dessert, pie. I have a completely self-indulgent reason for loving pie. It’s the only dessert where you can actually eat two desserts, pie and ice cream, and no one criticizes you for being piggy.
What is it about Southerners and our pies? There’s some nostalgia, certainly. When I was growing up, if you loved someone you made them a pie. If someone was feeling poorly, you sent over a buttermilk pie because it was supposed to be mild on the stomach and good for the soul. If they had cause for celebration, you made a nut pie. Often times, pecans were just too pricey so we substituted peanuts, and it was scrumptious. If someone had passed away, you took their family a funeral pie. Funeral pie is a dark raisin double crust pie, the filling so black it looks like even the pie is in mourning.
During the summer months, you’d have lemon meringue pie or peach hand pies. Hand pies are fruit pie turnovers the size of your palm that were fried, then rolled in cinnamon sugar while they were still hot. They were perfect for picnics, fishing trips, and for a delicious workman’s lunch. Grandpa took hand pies in his lunch box to the barn every day. In the fall, the hand pies would be made from the bounty of apples on the farm. There isn’t a family gathering in my memory where pies weren’t the star of the meal.
Thanksgiving and Christmas guaranteed sweet potato and apple pies would be available for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I know pumpkin is the more traditional holiday pie, but Grandpa didn’t grow pumpkins because he said they were hungry plants, requiring too much water and fertilizer for what you got. Sweet potatoes, on the other hand, were efficient growers and held well in the root cellar through the winter.
If I had to pick my most beloved pie, it would definitely be warm cherry pie with vanilla ice cream on top. I have been known to add a drizzle of hot fudge sauce to that already decadent combination so it tasted more like chocolate cherry bon-bons. I know, I know, I may have some sort of sugar addiction. I probably shouldn’t indulge in my cherry pie/hot fudge/ice cream dessert unless I’m hooked up to an insulin drip line, but sometimes you’ve just got to live dangerously.
Coming in a close second as my favorite pie would be my Grandma Grace’s sweet potato pie, which I love plain or dolloped with whipped cream. You’re right, I am absolutely not a plain pie kind of girl, but the hominess of this pie is so authentic and comforting that I can’t bear to gussy it up. That would be gilding the lily, and that would detract from the humble beauty of this pie.
So from my family to yours at this holiday season, I give you my Grandma Grace’s sweet potato pie recipe. May it fill your heart and tummy with all the cozy love found in a country kitchen at Christmas.
Grace’s Sweet Potato Pie
For the crust:
Please use your favorite flaky pie crust recipe, enough to make a single crust 9-inch pie. I double the recipe so I have enough to repair or decorate my crust, and to have a disk of pie dough in the freezer at the ready. You never know when you’ll need pie and having some pre-made crust makes it that much quicker to get pie on a fork. Of course, you may use a good store-bought pie dough. No one is judging you. I’m not Martha Stewart. I’m not even Tony Stewart.
For the filling:
- 3 LARGE SWEET POTATOES, ROUGHLY 3 POUNDS TOTAL
- 3 LARGE EGGS
- 1 CUP SUGAR
- 2 TABLESPOONS MOLASSES
- 1 TEASPOON LEMON EXTRACT
- ¼ TEASPOON SALT
- ½ TEASPOON GROUND NUTMEG
- ½ TEASPOON GROUND CINNAMON
- 1 STICK UNSALTED BUTTER, MELTED
- ½ CUP EVAPORATED MILK
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare pie crust, set in pie tin, and chill. Boil potatoes until fork tender. Drain, let cool, then peel and mash until lumps are gone. Use a fork to pull any potato strings out of the mash. If you skip this step, you’ll regret it later.
Add eggs, extract, sugar, molasses, salt and spices and beat until well mixed. Add evaporated milk and melted butter and beat until creamy. Pour into pie crust. Bake in center of oven until middle of pie is set. It really shouldn’t jiggle much when shaken gently. This takes about 45 minutes. Do not attempt to cut the pie until it has cooled down to room temperature at least.