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An old fashioned Sweet Potato Pie flavored with brandy, lemon, vanilla and the faintest hint of nutmeg. A creamy, smooth filling baked inside a cream cheese pie crust for the perfect bite.
This creamy sweet potato pie is simply flavored with brandy, vanilla and lemon. The recipe is from Mary Randolph, the author of The Virginia Housewife (1824), via The Southern Heritage Pies and Pastry Cookbook (1984 Edition).
True sweet potato pies don’t use any spices or strong flavorings like pumpkin pie, rather the vanilla, brandy and lemon accentuate the nuanced flavors of the sweet potatoes. You could add a teaspoon or two of my pumpkin spice recipe, but I love letting the sweet potatoes shine.
Table of Contents
- Why You Will Love this Sweet Potato Pie
- Professional Tips for Making Sweet Potato Pie
- Ingredients Needed
- Variations & Substitutions
- Why is my sweet potato pie dry?
- How to Make Sweet Potato Pie
- How do you know when sweet potato pie is done?
- Chef Lindsey’s Recipe Tip
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Sweet Potato Pie Recipe
- Before You Go
Why You Will Love this Sweet Potato Pie
- The sweet potato flavor is dominant. You will taste the sweetness and flavor of roasted sweet potato. The lemon and brandy pull out an almost floral note.
- Light & creamy texture. The filling is made using the creaming method like a cake, which produces a rich, light and creamy pie filling.
- Unique cream cheese crust. I make this pie with a cream cheese pie crust that is flaky, buttery and slightly tangy. It is a slight variation on the dough from this kolacky recipe.
Professional Tips for Making Sweet Potato Pie
- Use room temperature mashed sweet potatoes. Many recipes call for melting the butter into the sweet potatoes, however, for the best texture in this pie, you’ll want them to be room temperature or just slightly warm so they don’t melt the butter.
- Roast sweet potatoes for the best flavor. Roasting the sweet potatoes steams them in their skins, which concentrates the sugars. This pie will still be delicious with microwaved or boiled potatoes.
- Use a ricer for smooth puree. Press warm, baked sweet potatoes through a ricer for the smoothest puree. You can also puree it in a food processor and then press it through a sieve. Maybe double it and make this sweet potato casserole too!
- Par-bake the pie crust for the best of both worlds. Get a flaky, never-soggy bottomed pie crust with a smooth, creamy filling by partially blind baking the crust. Read more about how to par-bake pie crust in this tutorial.
Ingredients Needed
- Granulated Sugar: Granulated sugar is here for sweetness and to trap air when creamed with butter. This makes for a light sweet potato pie.
- Sweet Potatoes: Choose sweet potatoes with smooth skins that are blemish free. Sweet potatoes dry out as they age or if they are stored improperly, which can result in chunky and dry pie. You can also use canned sweet potato puree to make this a super easy recipe!
- Whole Eggs: It is important that the eggs are at room temperature to properly incorporate into the filling. This will ensure everything stays emulsified and smooth. Cold eggs will chill the butter and cause it to separate.
- Brandy: Choose a brandy that you like because you will taste it in the final, baked pie. If you don’t love the taste of brandy, smell it and find one with an aroma you find pleasing.
- Lemon: This recipe uses both zest and juice. Just remember to zest the lemon before juicing and just take off the bright yellow parts.
- Vanilla Extract: The vanilla extract complements and rounds out the flavors in this pie.
- Fresh Nutmeg: The recipe calls for freshly grated nutmeg. If you only have ground nutmeg, I would recommend omitting it. Ground nutmeg has a different flavor that will overwhelm the sweet potato.
- All-purpose flour
- Kosher Salt
- Cream Cheese
- Butter
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
Variations & Substitutions
- Use a different alcohol or omit it: Try bourbon, dark rum, or Grand Marnier for a different flavor profile. You can also just omit the alcohol without substitution.
- Use a different winter squash: This pie would be delightful with butternut, honeynut or sugar pumpkin squash puree instead.
- Use brown sugar for a more wintery flavor. The lemon, brandy and vanilla gives this pie a light, bright flavor, but it would also be delicious with brown sugar and a hint of cinnamon.
- Use a different pie crust: Rather than using the cream cheese crust below, try this all butter pie crust recipe, this foolproof vodka pie crust or even a sweet tart crust.
Why is my sweet potato pie dry?
Sweet potato pie can be dry if over-baked or made with older sweet potatoes. It is best to choose sweet potatoes that have firm, smooth skin without blemishes, and store them in a cool, dry place. The refrigerator will also dry them out! Old, dry sweet potatoes will not soften completely when baked and will make a lumpy, dry puree.
How to Make Sweet Potato Pie
Use these instructions to make the perfect sweet potato pie every time! Further details and measurements can be found in the recipe card below.
Prepare the cream cheese pie crust:
Step 1: Beat the cream cheese and butter together with a stand mixer or a hand mixer until completely incorporated and creamy (3-5 minutes).
Step 2: Reduce the speed of the mixer and add in the flour and salt. Mix until the dough comes together. If the dough is not cohesive and will not stay in a ball, sprinkle ice water a tablespoon at a time over the dough and mix with a fork until it comes together in a ball.
Step 3: Flatten into a circle, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until hard, at least 4 hours. Overnight refrigeration is recommended.
Step 4: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Roll out your pastry to 1/8th inch thick, chill for about 30 minutes, line a pie dish, trim the edges, roll them under and crimp decoratively.
Step 5: Place parchment paper in the pastry shell and fill with baking beans or weights. Bake in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until the bottom has begun to brown and the center looks matte (not shiny).
You can use the par-baked crust warm straight from the oven or let it cool while you prepare your filling. It can also be made the day ahead. Store at room temperature.
Prepare the pie filling:
Step 6: Preheat oven to 400°F. Wash sweet potatoes and prick them a few times on each side with a fork. Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake in the hot oven until soft. They are done when they can be pierced easily with a fork or cake tester. Peel when just cool enough to handle.
Step 7: Mash the sweet potatoes with a hand masher or the back of a large wooden spoon.
For perfectly smooth puree, puree in a blender or press through a ricer. You can also use canned sweet potato puree and skip all these steps.
Step 8: Warm the brandy in a small saucepan and reserve warm. This isn’t necessary but it will help keep the filling from breaking when it is added.
Step 9: Cream butter in a mixing bowl with a hand mixer: gradually add sugar, beating well after each addition. Add potatoes; beat on medium speed until well blended.
Step 10: Add eggs, one at a time; beating after each addition.
Step 11: Add the brandy, lemon zest, lemon juice, vanilla and nutmeg to the sweet potato mixture; stir until well blended. Pour mixture into pastry shell and smooth.
Step 12: Bake at 400°F for 15 minutes. Lower the temperature to 350°F and continue baking until the center has puffed and jiggles like jello, about 25 more minutes.
How do you know when sweet potato pie is done?
You can test the doneness by piercing the center with the tip of a knife but this will cause the pie to crack. The pie is done when the center no longer looks liquid and moves in one mass when shaken gently.
Chef Lindsey’s Recipe Tip
For a perfectly smooth puree, and the creamiest pie, choose fresh, firm sweet potatoes, bake them until soft, mash them and pass them through a ricer or puree in a blender while still warm.
Frequently Asked Questions
Store baked, cooled, and wrapped sweet potato pie at room temperature for up to 5 days, in the refrigerator for up to 10 days or frozen for up to 3 months.
The easiest way to get the strings out of sweet potatoes for pie is to puree them while still hot from cooking. Pass them through a ricer or puree them in a blender.
To keep sweet potato pie crust from getting soggy, try partially baking the crust prior to adding the filling, and be sure to bake the pie fully!
Both boiled and baked sweet potatoes can be used for pie; however, I find that baked sweet potatoes have a more complex flavor from the sugars steaming and concentrating in the skins while baking.
Sweet potato pie can be served cold, room temperature or warmed. I prefer it served room temperature with a spoonful of vanilla anglaise, a dollop of lemon whipped cream or lemon curd whipped cream, or served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
If you tried this recipe and loved it please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it goes in the comments below. I love hearing from you; your comments make my day!
Sweet Potato Pie
Ingredients
For the Cream Cheese Crust:
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened
- ice water as needed
For the Sweet Potato Filling:
- ¼ cup butter unsalted, softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 cups sweet potatoes cooked & mashed, room temperature
- 3 whole eggs room temperature
- ¼ cup brandy
- 2 teaspoons lemon zest be careful not to get the bitter, white pith!
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
Instructions
To Prepare the Cream Cheese Pastry:
- Beat the cream cheese and butter together with a stand mixer or a hand mixer until completely incorporated and creamy (3-5 minutes).
- Reduce the speed of the mixer and add in the flour. Mix until the dough comes together. If the dough is not cohesive and will not stay in a ball, sprinkle ice water a tablespoon at a time over the dough and mix with a fork until it comes together in a ball.
- Flatten into a circle, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until hard, at least 4 hours. Overnight refrigeration is recommended.
- Preheat the oven to 350℉. Roll out your pastry to 1/8th inch thick, chill for about 30 minutes, line a pie dish, trim the edges, roll them under and crimp decoratively.
- Place parchment paper in the pastry shell and fill with baking beans or weights. Bake in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until the bottom has begun to brown and the center looks matte (not shiny). You can use the par-baked crust warm straight from the oven or let it cool while you prepare your filling. It can also be made the day ahead. Store at room temperature.
To Prepare the Filling:
- Preheat oven to 400°F. Wash sweet potatoes and prick them a few times on each side with a fork. Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake in the hot oven until soft. They are done when they can be pierced easily with a fork or cake tester. Peel when just cool enough to handle.
- Mash the sweet potatoes with a hand masher or the back of a large wooden spoon. For perfectly smooth puree, puree in a blender or press through a ricer.
- Warm the brandy in a small saucepan and reserve warm. This isn’t necessary but it will help keep the filling from breaking when it is added.
- Cream butter in a mixing bowl with a hand mixer: gradually add sugar, beating well after each addition. Add potatoes; beat on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs, one at a time; beating after each addition.
- Add the brandy, lemon zest, lemon juice, vanilla and nutmeg to the sweet potato mixture; stir until well blended. Pour mixture into pastry shell and smooth.
- Bake at 400°F for 15 minutes. Lower the temperature to 350°F and continue baking until the center has puffed and jiggles like jello, about 25 more minutes.
Notes
Nutrition
Before You Go
I hope you enjoyed this professional chef tested recipe. Check out our other delicious, chef-developed pie recipes! You might also like the 25 Best Pumpkin Recipes for Fall!
Hi. I made this pie last night although I didn’t have a full 1/4c of E&J and I used a store bought pie crust, but the pie was still delicious!! Next time, I’m going to make your recipe for the crust as well!!!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!!!
I made this pie several times, this recipe is awesome! My family and friends think I’m a real baker. Thanks for the recipe!
Hi Stephanie! If you made this pie then you ARE a real baker! Happy baking!
Hi,
I found this site and want to try this recipe but I have a question. I assume that I needed a frozen unbaked 9inch pie crush to go along with the sour cream pie crust. As if, I was layering the sour cream crust into the frozen unbaked 9 inc pastry shell? The way it is written makes it seems as if you would have a sour cream hand made crust and then a pastry shell which is listed last.
I search hard for a 9inch unbaked pastry shell…I found Marie Callender at Kroger, however its not needed right. This recipe calls for you to make your own pastry shell?
Thanks
Hi Mika, I’m sorry that is so confusing! You can either use a homemade one (like the cream cheese one I used) or you can use an unbaked 9″ pie crust recipe of your choice…or you can buy one!
Thanks,
I used the one I bought…. Since I’d bought the sour cream I rubbed it into one of the store bought pie crust put into the freezer and then baked it about 5 minutes before adding filling. Hope it work!
Again, Thanks
Interesting approach! Let me know how it goes!
I goingto bake this pie in a couple of days. Noting the comment about the overwhelming brandy flavor, I’m wondering if I should reduce the amount to one ounce. I just bought a bottle of Hennessy cognac to use in a butternut squash pie recipe I’ve baked twice last week. But I omitted the brandy in those tests as I was trying to adjust the spices. I don’t drink brandy, so I’m not sure how strong Hennessy is compared to E&J.
I’m thrilled to have found your blog. Culinary culture is an important aspect of our identity.. I few years ago I took several hands-on culinary cooking classes with a curator and food historian at the Getty Museum. She created menus based on the time period of an exhibit. She tried to keep the ingredients as authentic as possible to give participants a better understanding of culture through food. Classes began with a tour and lecture on the exhibit; participants then prepared the dishes. The group then enjoyed the meal together.
Hi Cate! Cognac will certainly be delicious and is of a higher quality than the brand I used. If you are concerned, switch steps 9 and 10 in the recipe so that you can taste the flavors without having to eat raw eggs. Start with 1 tablespoon and go from there. The flavors will meld and only improve once the pie is baked and cooled!
I am so happy you found my blog! Those classes with a food historian sound amazing! I would enjoy that immensely as I find the way food has changed over centuries absolutely fascinating! I wonder if there are similar classes here in NYC. I will have to look into it! Thank you so much for your comment and let me know how you like the pie!
This adaptation of Mary Randolph’s sweet potato pie is simple perfect. The lemon brightens the sweet potatoe flavor,, and the cognac evokes just a hint of warm caramel. It’s everything I want in a custard pie. Light custard, bright flavor, delicately sweet, with a soft hint of caramel. Oh and the color of this pie! We certainly eat first with our eyes.
There’s a tendency toward sugar in pumpkin, squash, and sweet potatoe pies despite there natural sweetness. I’m especially put off by the overwhelming addition of brown sugar in such pies. It’s common to see recipes with two to three cups of sugar, mixed with an array of spices that compete with or cancel each other out. The addition of heavy creams and canned milks then coagulate everything into a thick goo that neither resembles nor tastes like the squash or root.
It was a treat to taste the sweet potato in this pie.
I used organic orange sweet potatoes, cultured butter, cane sugar, vanilla bean paste, and lemons picked from the garden. I used the full 60 ml of Hennessy cognac. (Tip: if readers are reluctant to purchase a large bottle of good cognac, liquor stores offer quality cognac in miniature “airline” bottles-. My local Bevmo in Napa, CA offers Hennessy miniatures for $6.)
I roasted the sweet potatoes in their skins, simply because I prefer the flavor of a roasted sweet potato to boiled. I made a gluten free crust as I’m a celiac.
I do like the gradual mixing of sugar into the butter. I think I’ll use that technique for my shortbread as it blends the sugar and butter beautifully.
Thank you for sharing this delicious recipe. This recipe is going into my favorites binder.
Just wanted to let you know that I made this for Thanksgiving and it was incredible! The right amount of sweet/savory. I’m making it again for my friend’s Christmas party this weekend, just because it’s so good and I want everyone else to enjoy it!!
Thank you very much, Gwendolyn for coming back to comment! I am so happy that you enjoyed this pie and I hope you and your friends enjoyed it again at the Christmas party! Merry Christmas!
I was so excited to try this recipe; I’ve been looking for a sweet potato pie recipe for a long time the crust turned out great, but from reading the recipe I didn’t realize how many crusts one recipe would make. My husband pointed out that I’ve made pies before and I should have been able to tell, but I think I was just too focused on the filling. For future reference, I think one recipe will make 4 single crust pies.
Also, I followed the recipe exactly and realized almost immediately that there was too much brandy. I hoped that a lot of it would cook off, but to my disappointment that was not the case. So unfortunately the brandy flavour (for me and my family at least) completely overpowered the whole thing. Any suggestions for what to do now that they are baked, to reduce this flavour somewhat?
Hi Virginia. I’m so sorry that you were disappointed. The crust recipe as written is enough for 1 double crust deep-dish pie or two single crust deep dish pies. I will adjust the instructions because you are absolutely right – that is waaay too much crust for this recipe! Since this pie crust recipe was an accident, I had previously divided the crust into two and froze the dough and didn’t think twice about it months later when I pulled out one for this recipe. Thank you!!
As for the brandy – I’m so sorry it was too much for your taste. I definitely didn’t find the brandy flavor to be overpowering. In addition to the difference in everyone’s tastes I can think of several things: your brandy was stronger than mine (I used one that was 80 proof) and I cook with a more expensive brandy. I use E&J XO Extra Smooth Brandy which has an almost floral note and is definitely less intense than some others I have tried. The only way I can think to fix it is to eat it with ice cream or more lemon whipped cream – unfortunately once it’s baked in the pie, there isn’t much you can do. The lemon flavor in the whipped cream will definitely help cut the brandy but it isn’t going to completely fix it.
Thank you so much for your feedback, Virginia. I’m going to adjust the recipe now. I am so unhappy that you didn’t enjoy it because this pie blew me away and I wish it had done for you too!
This is definitely not a true blue Southern Sweet Potato Pie recipe it is missing very important things like Cream..Nutmeg and Cinnamon and you don’t have close to enough Butter at all this is a Fail and a disgrace to a real Sweet Potato Potato Pie
Hi Rosalind, as you’ll see this is Mary Randolph’s recipe, one of the first writers of a Southern cookbook back in 1824.
Oh I thought of one more thing! Did you heat your brandy? Because that definitely takes some of the edge off.
I really wanted to love it. I did heat the brandy. I’m not a brandy drinker but it did look to be a fairly good one – but I wouldn’t really know. It said 40% alcohol – I don’t know if that’s what you mean by 80-proof (probably a difference between U.S. / Canadian terminology). I guessed that the lemon whipped cream would help but since there are many in my extended family not so fond of lemon I used regular; maybe now that it’s just my immediate family I’ll “whip up” some lemon flavoured. I will definitely try again with much less brandy (maybe even without), but then I’m guessing I’ll need something else to add some depth to the flavour. Thanks for your reply.
You are welcome! 80 proof is 40% alcohol by volume, so that wasn’t the difference. I don’t drink brandy either! But when I open the bottle to sniff it it smells nice unlike some hard liquors that smell more pungent. Did you cut the amount of lemon juice in the filling too by any chance?
If you do try it again maybe you could try bringing the brandy to a boil to cook off some more of the alcoholic flavor and then adding it to the filling 1 tablespoon at a time until you get just a nice subtle flavor that doesn’t taste like “brandy”. If you worry about the eggs, you could try swapping steps 9 & 10, but I don’t know how that will change the final texture of the pie.
This recipe looks great, but I’m really intrigued by the cream cheese crust! It looks incredible.
Thanks! The cream cheese crust is amazing!
I love sweet potato pie! I used to make this seasonally at my other job. But I often tend to OD with baking spices in dishes like this just because I prefer it like that. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever boiled sweet potatoes before. I’ve only used the dry cooking methods with them. I just realized that after reading your recipe.
I’ve never tried cream cheese crust before. That sounds really interesting. Yay for your screw ups lol. The best discoveries are always accidents. Is it still flakey with the addition of the cream cheese? Or it is a completely different type of crust? I have had my share of piecrust mishaps too. The worst one was when I accidently used the wrong flour and it came out all glutteny with rice cake consistency. If you were in that situation, I can imagine you saving it and creating something else edible with it. But me, I just tossed it lol.
I’d ever had it before but I love it now! I also love to heavily spice my pies but this one was truly lovely the way it is written. The cream cheese crust is still flakey. It is very similar to the one from my great-grandmother’s pecan tassies but even more flakey. But it is much richer than even a butter crust so I wouldn’t want to pair it with a rich or super sweet filling. It would be too much. Pie crusts are definitely an art but I don’t know if I could have saved a rice cake type crust!