Southern Sweet Potato Pie
Silky sweet potato custard made with brown sugar, butter, sour cream, extra yolks, cinnamon, nutmeg and an optional splash of bourbon, baked in a crust lined with a thin layer of caramelized brown sugar.
In much of the South, and at many African American Thanksgivings, the orange pie on the table is sweet potato. In 2018, NPR's Tracie McMillan reported that when the Sweet Home Café at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture opened in 2016, its sweet potato pie had ginger in it, and regulars who grew up on traditional Southern pies objected; chef Jerome Grant went back to a simpler pie of sweet potatoes, brown sugar, evaporated milk and eggs. Food historian Michael Twitty told NPR that ginger is common in West African cooking, and chef Thérèse Nelson said the "right" pie varies by region, county and family. One of the earliest printed recipes is in Abby Fisher's "What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking" (San Francisco, 1881), a cookbook dictated by a formerly enslaved cook: boiled, mashed sweet potatoes with butter, eggs, milk, sugar, orange juice and grated peel in a single bottom crust (Michigan State University's Feeding America collection:). Wikipedia's pumpkin pie article adds, citing Atlas Obscura, that after the Civil War many Southern cooks resisted pumpkin pie as a Yankee symbol and baked sweet potato pie instead.
🇺🇸 This one is American
Silky sweet potato custard made with brown sugar, butter, sour cream, extra yolks, cinnamon, nutmeg and an optional splash of bourbon, baked in a crust lined with a thin layer of caramelized brown sugar.
🇬🇧 The original
The English original is a lidded pie of sliced pumpkin layered with apples, herbs and spice, a 1600s recipe from Hannah Woolley. See the Pumpion Pie (Hannah Woolley's 17th-Century English Pumpkin Pie) recipe.
🗳️ Pumpkin pie or sweet potato pie? Vote: Pumpkin pie vs Sweet potato pie →
📖 Myth check: Is Canned Pumpkin Really Squash? →
Why it works the kitchen science
Microwave and food processor
Cooking the potatoes whole in the microwave keeps them from getting waterlogged the way boiled ones do, and the processor breaks up their fibers for a silky custard (ATK).
Sour cream and extra yolks
The sour cream's tang balances the brown sugar, and the yolks add richness and help each slice hold its shape (ATK).
Step by step
- Step 1
Make the crust as in our Classic American Pumpkin Pie recipe, step 1, and chill 30 minutes. Heat the oven to 375°F with a rack in the middle. Roll the dough to 13 inches, fit it into a 9-inch pie plate, trim 1/2 inch past the rim, fold under, crimp and freeze 15 minutes.
- Step 2
Line the crust with parchment and pie weights and bake 18 to 25 minutes, until the edges are lightly golden. Remove the parchment and weights, rotate the plate and bake 3 to 6 minutes more, until the bottom looks dry and opaque. Cool completely, sprinkle the 1/4 cup brown sugar evenly over the bottom, and lower the oven to 350°F.
- Step 3
While the crust bakes, prick the sweet potatoes all over with a fork and microwave them on a plate 15 to 20 minutes, flipping every 5 minutes, until very soft. Halve them right away to let steam out, and scoop out the flesh when cool enough to handle.
- Step 4
Process the sweet potato flesh, 1 cup brown sugar and salt in a food processor about 1 minute, until smooth. Microwave the butter with the cinnamon and nutmeg 15 to 30 seconds, until melted, and stir.
- Step 5
Add the spiced butter, sour cream, eggs, yolks, bourbon and vanilla to the processor and pulse about 10 seconds, just until combined. Pour into the crust.
- Step 6
Bake 35 to 40 minutes, until the edges are set, the center jiggles slightly and reads 165°F.
- Step 7
Cool completely on a rack, about 2 hours, before slicing. Refrigerate leftovers, covered, up to 4 days.
Southern Sweet Potato Pie
Serves 8 · one 9-inch pie · 1 hr 55 min total
Crust
- 150 g (1 1/4 cups) all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 113 g (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter, diced
- 59 g (1/4 cup) cold water, plus more as needed
- 50 g (1/4 cup) packed light brown sugar, for the bottom
Filling
- 794 g (1 3/4 lb) sweet potatoes, unpeeled
- 198 g (1 cup) packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 57 g (4 tbsp) unsalted butter
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 237 g (1 cup) sour cream
- 3 large eggs plus 2 large yolks
- 2 tbsp bourbon (optional)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Method
- Make the crust as in our Classic American Pumpkin Pie recipe, step 1, and chill 30 minutes. Heat the oven to 375°F with a rack in the middle. Roll the dough to 13 inches, fit it into a 9-inch pie plate, trim 1/2 inch past the rim, fold under, crimp and freeze 15 minutes.
- Line the crust with parchment and pie weights and bake 18 to 25 minutes, until the edges are lightly golden. Remove the parchment and weights, rotate the plate and bake 3 to 6 minutes more, until the bottom looks dry and opaque. Cool completely, sprinkle the 1/4 cup brown sugar evenly over the bottom, and lower the oven to 350°F.
- While the crust bakes, prick the sweet potatoes all over with a fork and microwave them on a plate 15 to 20 minutes, flipping every 5 minutes, until very soft. Halve them right away to let steam out, and scoop out the flesh when cool enough to handle.
- Process the sweet potato flesh, 1 cup brown sugar and salt in a food processor about 1 minute, until smooth. Microwave the butter with the cinnamon and nutmeg 15 to 30 seconds, until melted, and stir.
- Add the spiced butter, sour cream, eggs, yolks, bourbon and vanilla to the processor and pulse about 10 seconds, just until combined. Pour into the crust.
- Bake 35 to 40 minutes, until the edges are set, the center jiggles slightly and reads 165°F.
- Cool completely on a rack, about 2 hours, before slicing. Refrigerate leftovers, covered, up to 4 days.
Adapted from America's Test Kitchen's "Sweet Potato Pie" (August 23, 2013), as written for 8. ATK links its own single-crust dough; we use King Arthur's all-butter single crust from our Classic American Pumpkin Pie recipe. ATK's doneness is 165°F in the center with a slight jiggle; we keep it. Abby Fisher's 1881 recipe reached us only as text quoted on secondary sites, because the Michigan State scan refused our request. America's Test Kitchen. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
Tips
- The brown sugar layer on the crust melts into a thin caramel film; it is ATK's trick for a crisper, sweeter bottom.
- For the Sweet Home Café style, swap the sour cream for 1 cup evaporated milk (a common Southern choice); the pie will be a little looser (our suggestion).
- Choose orange-fleshed sweet potatoes; pale ones bake up drier and less sweet.
- Make it up to 24 hours ahead (ATK).
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Sweet potato pie came before pumpkin pie in the South. Disputed: Wikipedia, citing Atlas Obscura, says many Southern cooks turned to sweet potato pie after the Civil War in resistance to "Yankee" pumpkin pie; sweet potato pies also appear much earlier in English and American cookbooks.
- Abby Fisher's 1881 recipe is the first sweet potato pie. Disputed: one recipe site calls it the first known; an essay seen only in search results points to sweet potato pies in 18th-century English cookbooks.
- Abby Fisher was born in Alabama. Disputed: The Henry Ford's catalog and tota.world say Alabama; an Arkansas heritage blog says South Carolina.
- Ginger doesn't belong in sweet potato pie. Folklore: Twitty told NPR it is common in West African cooking; Smithsonian café regulars disagreed.
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