Bourbon Sweet Potato Pecan Pie

Today might be Halloween but I’m focused on the fact that Thanksgiving is around the corner (23 days away, to be exact) and figured it was time to start hitting y’all with Turkey Day recipes. If your family is divided between sweet potato and pecan pie lovers, I highly encourage you to try this out. It’s truly the best of both worlds with two Thanksgiving classics rolled into one…plus bourbon! You can’t go wrong with bourbon, right? Right.

There are a bunch of sweet potato pecan pie recipes around the internet but for this one I enlisted two of the great cooking influences in my life: my grandma and Ms. Patti LaBelle. My granny has baked perfect pecan pies for our family every year for as long as I can remember. And Ms. Patti has been popping since before Patti Pies hit your local Walmart last holiday season. I asked Grandma for guidance directly and looked up Ms. Patti’s recipe in one of her fabulous cookbooks (I don’t have her number just yet). 🙂

This is probably more like a sweet potato pie with pecan pie topping because the sweet potato layer is much thicker. Just between us, I made a few tweaks to the sweet potato pie recipe like roasting the sweet potatoes instead of boiling (deepens the flavor) and, of course adding bourbon. It doesn’t take much longer to make this hybrid pie than either of the original components and the smells while baking are incredible. Even though it’s a straightforward recipe, you can make it even simpler by skipping the homemade crust. I’ve included my go-to all butter crust recipe in the instructions below but we’re all busy so I won’t tell anyone if you just use a prepared crust from the store.

This is the last in my mini-series of sweet potato recipes for October so I wanted to go out with a bang. I hope y’all like it. The others from this month were this spicy chipotle skillet meal, salted caramel sweet potato blondies, and a sweet potato cheesecake with spiced crust. If you love sweet potato, check back here on Friday for a roundup of over 40 sweet potato recipes to get us ready for Thanksgiving and beyond. Thanks for reading!

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

Print

Bourbon Sweet Potato Pecan Pie

Cook Time

1 hr 10 mins

Total Time

1 hr 10 mins

 

Two southern Thanksgiving classics collide in a perfectly sweet and easy-to-make pie that has something for everyone at your table

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: bourbon dessert, how to make pie for thanksgiving, Patti LaBelle sweet potato pie, southern sweet potato pie, Thanksgiving pie recipe

Servings: 8 servings

Ingredients

Sweet Potato Pie Filling

• 2 large sweet potatoes roasted and skinned
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 6 tablespoons butter melted
• 2 eggs beaten
• 1/2 cup brown sugar packed
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons bourbon whiskey
• 1 teaspoon Nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Pecan Pie Layer

• 1 1/2 cups pecan halves
• 1/2 cup dark corn syrup
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon butter melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Crust

• 3/4 cup butter cut into cubes
• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 tablespoon cold water

Instructions

1. Start the crust by incorporating sea salt flour and butter until a coarse meal forms. This can be done in a bowl by hand by hand or in a food processor. Add cold water and continue working or pulsing mixture until a dough forms. Shape into a disc (like a hockey puck), wrap in plastic, and chill for at least 30 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, beat roasted sweet potatoes with an electric mixer or in a food processor until smooth. Add remaining sweet potato filing ingredients and mix or pulse until uniform, scraping sides of bowl as necessary.
3. Mix all pecan pie ingredients except pecans until uniform.
4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll out chilled pie crust dough and place in a 9 inch pie pan. Remove excess dough from around sides of pan and crimp or style edges as desired. Par bake for about 15 minutes then decrease oven heat to 350 degrees.
5. Spread sweet potato mixture into pie crust. Arrange pecans, flat sides down, on top of sweet potato mixture. Gently pour pecan pie mixture over top.
6. Bake for about an hour and 10 minutes or until pecan topping is browned and firm to touch. Cool completely before slicing.