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Picture of the Week 12/12/2009

The Beauty of Koi

I was in Balboa Park in San Diego recently. A lovely Japanese Garden there hosts all sorts of flora, fauna, a lovely rock garden, and of course some lovely koi ponds. Here is a photo I snapped of some of these large colorful Japanese carp.

See past awesome recipes and crazy photos here .

So, in my attempts to overcome my discord with baking and sweets, I decided to try my hand at baking a pie. Since it was around Thanksgiving, a sweet potato pie seemed the obvious choice. Some people would pick pumpkin pie, however since I dislike all things gourd, that idea was dead before it got started.

 

I searched high and low for a recipe that seemed reasonable, and when I found one, I went for the gold. Only half way through cooking my mother determined there wasn’t enough flour in my batter… Hmmm… interesting. Ummm… my recipe didn’t call for flour at all. What was up with that? Well, to make my mother happy and to pay homage to my grandmother, the best cook in the world

 

Here’s my recipe:

¨ 3 large sweet potatoes

¨ ½ stick butter melted but not piping hot (sweet cream; salted)

¨ 3 eggs

¨ ¼ cup brown sugar

¨ 1 cup brown sugar (packed in measuring cup)

¨ ¼ teaspoon salt

¨ ½ teaspoon ground ginger

¨ ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¨ ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¨ ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

¨ 2 tbsp maple syrup

¨ ¼ cup white granulated sugar

¨ ¼ cup flour (all-purpose)

¨ 2 9 inch unbaked pie crusts

 

1) Peel and chop sweet potatoes.

 

2) Put in boiler with ¼ cup brown sugar and enough water to cover the potatoes. Boil until tender.

 

3) Preheat oven to 400F degrees.

 

4) Strain sweet potatoes

 

5) Mash sweet potatoes in large mixing bowl.

 

6) Add to mixing bowl, cup brown sugar, salt, butter, eggs, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, syrup, and white sugar. Mix with hand blender until silk smooth.

7) Taste mixture to ensure it has enough flavor for you, feel free to add a little of whichever spice you prefer. If it tastes sweet, that’s OK because the flour added in the next step will neutralize that a bit.

 

8) Add flour and mix well.

 

9) Pour into two pie crusts and put in the oven. You want to bake on 400F for about 10 minutes so the crust will get done on the bottom and will go *with* the slice of pie when you cut and lift it from the pan!

 

10) Then cook on 350F for another 30-40 minutes. You have to touch the top of the pie to know when to take it out. The edges will become firm first, and you will notice that when you touch them, you finger comes back clean. If you touch in the center and it comes back with pie filling on it, you need to leave it in another 5 minutes or so.

 

Recipe of the Week 12/12/2009:

The Best Sweet Potato Pie Ever!