Grandma old fashioned sweet potato pie recipe is true to its name. It's just like grandma used to make! A golden pie crust is filled with rich, sweet potato filling.
Sweet potato pie is such a classic dessert, and my grandma made the best. Of course, we all say that, don't we? Well, give this one a try, and I think you just might agree with me.
Old Fashioned Sweet Potato Pie Recipe
This was inspired by my pumpkin pie recipe that was based on another of my favorite pie dessert from my grandma. It's the perfect dessert to finish off a meal of this delicious air fryer roast beef and potatoes.
Ingredients
It only takes a few simple ingredients to make this delicious pie. There's nothing fancy here, just a ton of flavor. I just wish I knew where I got this recipe from!
For the Pie Crust
- Unbleached all purpose flour
- Salt
- White sugar
- Unsalted butter
- Vegetable shortening
- Ice water
For the Sweet Potato Filling
- Sweet potatoes
- Unsalted butter
- Large eggs
- Egg yolks
- White sugar
- Ground nutmeg
- Salt
- Broubon
- Molasses - optional
- Vanilla extract
- Whole milk
- Dark brown sugar
See the recipe card at the end of the post for quantities.
Instructions
Everything about this recipe is completely from scratch. You'll even be making the sweet potatoes. That means there are several steps to this recipe, but they're all extremely easy when you break them down.
Step 1: Combine the Dry Crust Ingredients
Pulse the flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor to combine. Next, add the cut-up cold butter and cut it into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse cornmeal using 1-second pulses. DO NOT over mix.
Step 2: Add Water to Make the Dough
Turn the flour and butter mixture out into a medium bowl. Then, add about 4 tablespoons of ice water and fold it into the flour with a rubber spatula until a bit of the dough holds together when squeezed in your hand.
Step 3: Form the Dough
Turn the dough out onto a clean, dry surface and gently gather and press it into a ball. Next, flatten it into a disk roughly 4 inches in diameter. Wrap it in plastic wrap and chill it in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
You can do this up to 2 days before you're ready to make the pie.
Step 4: Roll Out the Dough
Remove the dough from the refrigerator. If you chilled it for longer than 30 minutes, give it a few minutes at room temperature before working it.
Roll the dough on a lightly floured surface until you have a disk about 12-inches across and about ⅛-inches thick. Then, fold the dough into quarters and place the point in the center of a 9-inch pie plate.
Step 5: Form the Crust
Unfold the dough to cover the pie plate. working around the plate, ease the dough carefully into the edges and bottom of the pie plate.
Next, trim the edge to about ½-inch beyond the plate lip and tuck the rim of the dough underneath itself so that the edges are about ¼-inch beyond the plate lip. Flute the dough around the edges.
Step 6: Chill the Dough Again
Chill the crust for 40 minutes in the refrigerator and then in the freezer for about 20 minutes to reduce shrinkage while the crust bakes.
Step 7: Prep the Crust for Blind Baking
Move your oven rack to the center position and preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Then, press a doubled, 18-inch square of heavy-duty foil over the bottom, sides, and edges of the pie crust. Fold back the edges of the foil to protect the fluted edge of the crust.
Finally, evenly distribute metal or ceramic pie weights over the foil.
Step 8: Blind Bake the Crust
Bake at 375 degrees with the foil and weights in place for 17 to 20 minutes or until the dough dries and lightens in color. Next, carefully remove the foil and weight and bake about 9 more minutes or until the crust is golden brown.
Remove the crust from the oven and reduce the heat to 350 degrees.
Step 9: Cook the Sweet Potatoes
Prick your sweet potatoes several times with a fork and place them on a double layer of paper towels in the microwave. Cook them at full power for 5 minutes, turn them over and cook for another 5 minutes. They should be tender but not mushy. Cool the potatoes for 10 minutes.
Step 10: Scoop and Mash the Potatoes
Cut each potato in half lengthwise and use a spoon to scoop out the flesh. While they're still hot, add the butter and mashed them with a fork or wooden spoon until they're mostly mashed with small lumps of sweet potato remaining.
Step 11: Combine the Wet Filling Ingredients
Whisk eggs, yolks, sugar, nutmeg, and salt together in a medium bowl. Then, stir in the bourbon, molasses (optional), and vanilla. Finally, whisk in the milk.
Step 12: Add the Wet Ingredients to the Sweet Potatoes
Gradually add the egg mixture to the sweet potatoes, whisking gently to combine.
Step 13: Bake
Heat the pie shell in the oven for about 5 minutes until warm. Then, sprinkle the bottom of the shell with brown sugar. Pour the sweet potato filling into the pie shell and bake for about 45 minutes. The filling should be set around the edges and jiggle slightly in the middle when shaken.
Cool the pie on a wire rack for about 2 hours and serve.
Hint: Be sure to blind bake the crust to prevent it from being soggy.
Substitutions
Don't have the correct ingredients on hand or want to change something up? Here are some helpful tips for you to change this old fashioned sweet potato pie recipe.
- Lard - If you want to really go old school, use lard instead of shortening.
- Light Brown Sugar - If you don't have dark brown sugar, light brown sugar will work.
- Ground Nutmeg - Either fresh or packaged ground nutmeg will work.
Variations
Want to personalize this grandma old fashioned sweet potato pie recipe? Here are some of my tried and true tips for changing up this recipe.
- Cinnamon - Add a pinch of cinnamon to pair with the nutmeg for more flavor.
- Toasted Nuts - Add toasted pecans, walnuts, or almonds to the top of your pie before serving.
If you love recipes like this, you may also enjoy grandma's bacon cheeseburger pie.
Equipment
There are a lot of moving parts to this recipe, but it still only requires basic baking equipment.
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Mixing bowls
- Spoon
- Food processor
- Foil
- Baking weights
- Pie plate
Storage
This pie will keep for up to 5 days in an air-tight container in the refrigerator. For longer storage, you can freeze it for up to 3 months. Be aware that the texture may change a bit.
Tips
I have a few tips here that will help ensure your sweet potato pie is the best it can possibly be. These are easy tips that make a big difference, so don't skip this part.
- Don't overcook your sweet potatoes or the filling won't have the right texture.
- Don't overmash your sweet potaotes. Again, this will cause the texture to be off.
- Use butter that is as cold as possible when making your crust.
More Sweet Potato Recipes
Do you like sweet potatoes? Here are some recipes you may also like to try.
FAQ
Do you have questions about grandma sweet potato pie recipe? Here are some of the most commonly asked questions about this old fashioned sweet potato pie recipe.
Although similar to one another, sweet potato pie uses fewer spices and is inherently sweeter than pumpkin pie, which is less sweet and uses more spices.
It will last for 5 days in the refrigerator or up to 3 months in the freezer.
Wrap the pie or individual slices in a double layer of plastic wrap. Then, wrap a whole pie in another layer of foil. Place wrapped, individual slices in an air-tight, freezer-safe container or heavy-duty freezer bag.
If you didn't adequately bake the crust during the blind baking process, the liquid from the sweet potato pie filling can seep into the crust and make it soggy.
If your pie jiggles somewhat in the center, that's normal. The baking process should continue as the pie cools, fully cooking over the course of a couple of hours. If you try to serve the pie right out of the oven, it won't be completely done.
Grandma Old Fashioned Sweet Potato Pie Recipe
Ready to get cooking? Remember that you can print this recipe if you would like.
Grandma Old Fashioned Sweet Potato Pie Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
Pie Dough
- 1 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon table salt
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter chilled, cut into ¼-inch pieces
- 3 tablespoons vegetable shortening chilled
- 4 - 5 tablespoons ice water
Sweet Potato Filling
- 2 pounds sweet potatoes about 5 small to medium
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- 3 large eggs
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1 cup sugar
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg ideally fresh
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 - 3 tablespoons bourbon
- 1 tablespoon molasses
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅔ cup whole milk
- ¼ cup dark brown sugar packed
Instructions
- Get out and measure your ingredients.
- Using your food processor pulse flour, salt and sugar until combined. Sprinkle butter pieces over flour mixture and pulse several times. Add shortening and continue pulsing until flour is pale yellow and resembles crumbs, no larger than the size of pearls. Dump crumbs into another bowl, if necessary.
- Evenly distribute 4 - 5 tablespoons of ice water on mixture. Knead dough until dough forms a ball.
- Flatten dough into a 4 or 5 inch roundish ball. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or up to 2 days, before you need to roll use it.
- Allow to come to room temperature before using. Roll dough out on lightly floured surface or between two large sheets of parchment paper into a 12 inch roundish circle, less than ¼ inch thick.
- Carefully place dough into pie plate by gently lifting dough edges with one hand while pressing around the pan bottom with your other hand. Trim edge to ½ inch beyond pan edge. Refrigerate uncooked pie shell for 40 minutes and then freeze for 20 minutes. This technique will help to reduce crust shrinkage while baking.
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees, when ready to bake.
- Press heavy duty or doubled foil inside uncooked pie shell and fold foil edges over to protect pie crust edge from burning. Weight foil down as best you can using weights like dried beans or uncooked rice. I've even taken a smaller pie plate filled with water and placed it in the middle of the plate, on top of the uncooked crust, and it worked beautifully. Bake, leaving everything on top of crust until crust looks dry, 18 to 20 minutes. I simply bake for 18 minutes and gently remove foil and weights by lifting foil edges or doing whatever is necessary to remove foil and weights. Return crust to oven and bake until a nice golden brown, about 8 -10 minutes longer. Remove pie crust from oven and reduce your oven's temperature to 350 degrees.
- Pierce sweet potatoes many times with fork and place on paper towels and microwave on full power for 5 minutes, flip each potato over and cook until tender, not mushy, another 5 minutes. Cool potatoes for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Cut each potato in half and scoop and scrape out potato flesh into a bowl, reserve skins for another use or discard. I sometimes use an oven mitt to hold potatoes or paper towels or a clean cloth, if too hot to handle. There should be around 2 cups of sweet potato flesh when you're done. While potatoes are still hot or at least warm, add butter and mash with masher or fork until only small lumps of potato remain.
- In a medium sized bowl, combine eggs, egg yolks, sugar, nutmeg, and salt with a whisk.
- Add bourbon, molasses, vanilla, and milk.
- Slowly add egg mixture to your sweet potatoes until combined.
- Heat your partially baked pie crust in your oven until warm, around 5 minutes.
- Sprinkle brown sugar across bottom of pie crust, as evenly as possible.
- Pour your sweet potato mixture on top of brown sugar layer until covered.
- Bake for 45 minutes and filling is set around edges and center jiggles slightly when adjusted.
- Transfer pie to wire rack to allow to cool to room temperature which takes somewhere around 2 hours.
- Serve and slice.
- Enjoy!
- Every bite!
Notes
- Don't overcook your sweet potatoes or the filling won't have the right texture.
- Don't overmash your sweet potaotes. Again, this will cause the texture to be off.
- Use butter that is as cold as possible when making your crust.
Nat
This is literally lifted from a cook book. That's stealing.
Karin and Ken
I’m so grateful for your message. Do you happen to know the exact book? Page number? We have not been able to find it. I’ve used this recipe for years and would love to mention the cookbook if you know it. Thank you and take care! You made my day. I’ve never been happier to be referred to as a thief! All the best. Karin