By Vida Gustafson
Contributing Writer
I absolutely adore cooking with Stokes Purple sweet potatoes. They are becoming more widely available, which is fantastic. You can find them now in nearly every health-food store.
They have a significantly higher antioxidant content than orange sweet potatoes and even outperform traditional Okinawan sweet potatoes on the nutritional front.
The brilliant purple hue is also a joy to cook with. The pies came out more magenta purple, but last time I got a truly bluish purple. The kids loved it! This recipe makes two 9-inch open pies. You can also fit it into 24 mini pies or make a large rectangular pie.
Ingredients
2 ½ lbs Stokes Purple sweet potato
1 Can Evaporated Milk
4 Eggs
5 tbsp Butter
2/3 c Brown Sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 tsp Cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
Pie Crust Dough for two 9-inch round pies
Equipment
Large-capacity Food Processor
Method
Wash and bake your sweet potatoes whole, on a lined baking sheet in a 400-degree oven for 1 to 1 ½ hours, depending on their size. Bigger sweet potatoes will take longer to cook than smaller ones.
You will know that they are ready when they’ve started to leak fluid and when you touch them (quickly), you can feel that the skin has pulled away from the flesh. Let them cool for 15 minutes before trying to spoon out the cooked sweet potato.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, spoon the cooked sweet potato and 5 tbsp of butter into a blender or large food processor. It will need at least a 6 cup capacity. If what you’re using is smaller, do the blending in two batches and mix in the other ingredients in a bowl afterwards.
Once the sweet potato and butter is blended smoothly (incidentally, you get a smoother consistency if you blitz them while still warm), add the evaporated milk, brown sugar, salt, spices and vanilla. Blend until combined. Add the eggs last and mix for a further 2-3 minutes.
Pour onto (unbaked, thawed) pie crusts and bake for 55-60 minutes. The pies will dome out a little and no longer wobble when moved.
Let cool slightly and serve either warm or chilled with fresh whipped cream.
