Sweet Potato & Coconut Pie
I don’t know if I really need to sell you on why you should be baking pies during the fall. I mean, who doesn’t like a crunchy flakey crust filled with a smooth & creamy sweet potato and coconut milk concoction that smells like a bakery when you remove it from the oven?
Sweet Potato & Coconut Pie
Makes 1 9-inch Pie
Listening to: Come Over by Jorja Smith ft. Popcaan
Pie Dough
2¼ cups (10 oz/280 g) all-purpose flour
1 TB (½ oz/15 g) granulated sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
1 cup (8 oz/227 g) unsalted butter, chilled
5 TB (2½ oz/75 g) ice water
Filling
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
3/4 cups light brown sugar
1 cup coconut milk
6 tablespoons butter, softened
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 ¼ teaspoons ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Pinch ground cloves
Large pinch salt
1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
3 large eggs
FOR THE PIE DOUGH,
Fill a small bowl with cold water and ice cubes and set it aside.
Cube the butter and freeze until ready to use.
Place the flour, sugar and salt into the bowl of a food processor and pulse two to three times. Or if using a stand mixer, fit with the paddle attachment and mix on low speed (speed 2) to combine and distribute the ingredients.
Add the butter to the bowl. Pulse until the butter is in small pieces and the texture resembles wet sand. Or mix on low speed (speed 2) in the stand mixer to coat the butter with flour and to cut it into the dry ingredients.
Add the ice water, one tablespoon at a time, pulsing for 15 seconds between each addition. “or mixing on low speed (speed 2) for 15 seconds between each addition.
After all of the water has been added, continue to pulse until the dough just begins to clump together (about fifteen to twenty pulses in a food processor). Or mix in the stand mixer at low speed until the dough just begins to clump together (an additional 3 to 4 minutes).
Turn the dough out onto parchment paper or a lightly floured surface and gently bring it together into a ball.
Cut the ball in half, press gently with the heel of your hand to flatten the pieces into discs.
Wrap each disc tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before rolling.
Lightly dust a clean, dry work surface with flour. Place the chilled dough in the center of the work surface, and dust the dough as well as the rolling pin with flour.
Position the rolling pin on the center of the disk, and begin rolling the dough away from you. Give the disk a quarter turn, and roll again. Continue turning and rolling until you have an even 1/8-inch thickness.
Lightly butter the pie plate. Roll the dough around the pin, lift up, and unroll over the buttered pie plate.
Using your fingers, gently pat the dough into place. Trim any excess dough with a paring knife or kitchen shears, leaving a 1-inch overhang; then fold dough underneath itself, rolling it up and under towards the pie dish. Use your fingers to seal everything in and even out the crust, so you have a nice even, thick crust
Crimp the crust and place in the freezer until the filling is ready.
FOR THE FILLING,
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
Cover the pan of sweet potatoes with foil and cook in the oven until tender, 20-25 minutes.
Remove from the oven and mash the sweet potatoes.
Blend all of the ingredients except the eggs and taste for seasoning.
Add the eggs and mix until the filling is smooth.
Pour the filling into the unbaked pie shell
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until firm.
Let cool completely before slicing, about 2 hours.
October is breast cancer awareness month and this year I wanted to make sure I support all of the foundations and non-profits that I feel passionate about. I always say I’m going to do more to help and always talk a big game about it, and then life happens and I become distracted from those projects and then I beat myself about it. Well, not this year. This year has beat me up enough as it is, as I’m sure it has you; and quite honestly my mind body and soul are sore from it. There is always room to do good in this world and in our lifetime. We may not think that we can change the world with our actions or our decisions, but believe me, we can and the world is counting on us to do so.
Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women, skin cancer is the most common. “As of January 2020, there are more than 3.5 million women with a history of breast cancer in the U.S. This includes women currently being treated and women who have finished treatment.” “The overall death rate from breast cancer decreased by 1.3% per year from 2013 to 2017. These decreases are thought to be the result of treatment advances and earlier detection through screening.”
These stats are one of the many from www.breastcancer.org, and if your like me, this rattles you. Besides the costs of treatments such as surgery or radiation, there are extra expenses that I didn’t consider such as transportation to and from a treatment center, child care while undergoing treatment, special foods to make sure your nutritional needs are being met, having to take time off from work which then means a lower income, if one doesn’t have insurance or are unemployed; I mean are you overwhelmed reading this??? There are so many great foundations and charities trying their best to assist. But as nonprofits, they can only do so much.
So, I decided I would bake some pies and sell them to share the funds with the breast cancer foundation here in Cayman. I don’t know how many I will sell, but I do know that there is a way to do what I love and give back at the same time.
So let’s bake a pie in support of the ta-ta’s this month and spread love and awareness through food!