Stop Boiling Your Sweet Potatoes for Pie! The Old Alabama Roasting Trick My Grandmama Swore By

Stop Boiling Your Sweet Potatoes for Pie! The Old Alabama Roasting Trick My Grandmama Swore By In November of 1975, my husband lost his job at the mill, the light bill was late, and I had six days to sell forty sweet potato pies. The night the lights went out, I learned the one thing about pie no recipe ever told me. Here is the whole recipe, free, so you can print it and keep it in your own book. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ MAMA ODESSA'S SWEET POTATO PIE Makes one 9-inch deep-dish pie INGREDIENTS • About 2 lb sweet potatoes (enough for 2 cups mashed) • 1 stick (½ cup) butter, softened • ¾ cup white sugar • ¼ cup brown sugar • ½ tsp nutmeg • A pinch of cinnamon • 1 tsp lemon juice or ½ tsp lemon extract • ½ cup evaporated milk • 1 tsp vanilla • ¼ tsp salt • 2 eggs, at room temperature • 1 unbaked 9-inch deep-dish pie crust HOW TO MAKE IT 1. Poke the sweet potatoes with a fork and roast them whole on a foil-lined sheet pan at 400°F for about 1 hour, until the skins wrinkle, syrup bubbles out and a knife slides in with no push. 2. Peel them while warm and scrape the syrup off the foil into your bowl. 3. Mash the hot potatoes with the butter. 4. Beat with an electric mixer for about a minute. Pull the strings off the beaters, rinse them, and repeat until they come out clean. 5. Mix in both sugars and taste. 6. Add the nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon, evaporated milk, vanilla and salt. 7. Beat in the eggs last, just until you cannot see any yellow. 8. Let the filling rest 10 minutes and skim the air bubbles off the top. 9. Crimp your crust and chill it for 15 minutes. 10. Put an empty sheet pan on the lowest oven rack and heat the oven to 350°F. 11. Fill the crust to just below the rim and set the pie on the hot sheet pan. 12. Bake 55 to 60 minutes. If the crust browns too fast, cover just the edges with a ring of foil. 13. It is done when a toothpick 1 inch from the edge comes out clean. The middle will still be a little soft. 14. Turn the oven off, prop the door open a crack, and let the pie cool inside for 1 hour. This is what keeps it from cracking. TO KEEP: Cool completely, cover and refrigerate up to 4 days, or freeze up to 1 month wrapped tight. Serve at room temperature: take it out of the refrigerator 1 hour before serving. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CHAPTERS 0:00 Six days to sell forty pies 1:17 The big secret 1:49 #25–23 Choosing and roasting the potatoes 2:39 Mr. Tolbert's counter 3:15 #22–20 Peeling, butter and sugar 4:06 The first eight pies 4:47 #19–17 Nutmeg, lemon and canned milk 5:29 Lonnie and the old mixer 6:07 #16–14 The strings, the eggs and the salt 6:56 The night the lights went out 7:42 #13–11 Resting the filling and the crust 8:34 Wednesday morning 8:59 #10–8 The oven and the edges 9:43 The sign in the window 10:27 #7 Sweet potato or pumpkin? 11:05 #6–4 Doneness, cracks and keeping it 11:44 Thanksgiving morning 12:21 #3–2 Serving it and the extra pie 12:49 #1 Let it cool in the oven 13:33 What that week taught me Now tell me in the comments: sweet potato or pumpkin? And who made the Thanksgiving pie in your family? Tell me her name. Keep the skillet hot, baby. Mama Odessa is a storytelling character. The recipes come from real Southern home-cooking tradition, and some visuals in this video are AI-generated. #sweetpotatopie #soulfood #southerncooking #thanksgivingrecipes #grandmasrecipes