The season for pumpkin spice and everything nice has finally arrived, and I was feeling hungry for something sweet and cozy. With the oversaturation of the pumpkin market, the pumpkin spice is starting to taste a little less pumpkin nice. The next thing most people think of when they think of fall treats is, of course, apples. Nothing is more “fall” than the smell of Grandma’s secret apple pie recipe fresh from the oven after a long day of raking leaves. However, for those of us who aren’t big on apples, it might seem we are out of options.
That left me thinking of the next coziest sweet fall treat, and for me, that’s sweet potato. Starchy, sweet, soft, orange, and delicious when baked, it was the perfect candidate for a scrumptious experience.
While scrolling through allrecipes looking for some fall recipes without the overdone pumpkin or unwelcome apple flavors, I came across this delicious looking sweet potato pie, topped with meringue called “Grandaddy’s Sweet Potato Meringue Pie” posted by Julie Ledford. Clearly inspired by two iconic American desserts: baked sweet potato topped with marshmallow and sweet potato pie, both commonly eaten in the South.
What I like about this recipe is that the marshmallow topping is replaced with meringue, while slightly more complicated to make, really elevates the flavor of the dessert, and makes the whole experience feel a little bit fancier.
The first thing I decided to do was to make some swaps to the ingredients for accessibility and flavor. The white sugar in the pie got replaced with brown sugar, the pastry crust was replaced with graham cracker crust, and white sugar in the meringue was replaced with caster sugar. The first swap was for a richer flavor, and the others were for accessibility — the ingredients I already had. Caster sugar is essentially a fine white sugar, using it in a meringue would make no difference to the final product. Either way, the recipe calls for a premade crust, so the kind that you use is really up to preference, which is why I used the graham cracker crust that I already had.
When incorporating all of the ingredients into the mashed potato, the mixture never reached a smooth consistency. So for an improved texture, I made the executive decision to use my immersion blender before transferring everything into the pie crust.
The instructions for the meringue were definitely a little confusing. The first step is to add egg whites to a bowl and beat them for 3-5 minutes, until “stiff” before adding the rest of the ingredients. When cooking, the term “stiff” implies that the mixture holds firm peaks when lifted, so I mixed it until it held stiff peaks. The next step says to add the sugar and vanilla extract and then continue beating until the mixture “holds stiff peaks.” Which was confusing because the meringue was already stiff at this point. Because of the odd instructions, I made a slightly overmixed meringue which had a clumpy texture and a slightly eggy taste when cooked. To avoid this, it would make a lot more sense to add the sugar and vanilla when the eggs start to foam, then beat until stiff peaks form.
One thing I noticed about this recipe is that the directions say that things would take longer than they did in practice. The pie was set in 20 minutes rather than 30, the meringue should only have been beaten for one to two minutes before adding the other ingredients and after adding the meringue to the top of the pie the final cook took five minutes rather than 10. It was good that I kept a careful watch on everything because the pie would have turned out burnt with curdled meringue if I had stuck perfectly to the directions.
Despite the minor setbacks, the pie turned out absolutely delicious. The pie itself was sweet, soft and cozy, perfectly capturing the essence of fall. If you like the texture of pumpkin pie but aren’t crazy about the flavor, then you will definitely like this. The meringue was good with the pie, adding a soft, pleasant texture that mimicked marshmallows. I found the eggy flavor of the meringue unappetizing, however, when eaten with the rest of the pie it was unnoticeable.
What I like about this recipe is that all of the ingredients are simple, accessible and very affordable. The only thing I had to purchase to make this recipe was sweet potatoes.
The one thing, besides a properly made meringue, that would improve this pie is more flavor. If you like Southern sweet potato pie, this is definitely not that. Adding in a little bit of nutmeg and cloves to the mashed potato would have elevated the comforting fall flavors going on and would have gotten me craving this recipe.
Overall, I think it’s time for us to ditch the pumpkin spice and apple nice and give this recipe a try.
