My mom was here over Christmas, and we had picked up a box of sweet potatoes to use for our Christmas dinner. I think we used one, maybe two spuds… that left me with a rather large box to use up (did I mention it was from Costco?)

Due to having a few extra sweet spuds laying around, I have been trying to come up with new ways to use them… and I remembered the mini sweet potato pies that we had once while visiting the Apple Festival in Cedaredge, CO years ago. So I set my mind to figuring out how to make them.

But I wanted to make it a tad more healthy than most of the recipes I was finding. Then I found this one over on VeganBaking.net – and I am so glad I did!

But of course I made a couple of changes. Don’t I always?

(Mostly) Vegan Sweet Potato Pie

9 inch pie crust (pre-baked if using a homemade crust – I recommend this one or this one if you aren’t looking for vegan crust)

2 cups sweet potato puree (1-2 large roasted sweet potato)
¾ cup cashew butter
1/3 cup sugar
¼ cup sucanat
2 Tbsp corn starch (don’t judge, it’s what I had!)
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp ground cloves

To make the sweet potato puree, line a baking sheet with foil. Preheat oven to 400F, or broil on low. Put the sweet potatoes in the oven until the tops are dark and skin has separated from the flesh. They will start to go just past smelling sweet to smelling slightly over-done. Roasting the potatoes brings out their natural sweetness, which means you don’t have to use as much sugar.

Take them out and gently peel the skins off. Put the potatoes in a blender or mixing bowl to cool.  Lower the oven temp to 350F.

Once they aren’t hot anymore, cream them to a smooth consistency. A blender works really well for this, but the mixing bowl would, I’m sure, work equally well.

Measure out 2 cups of potato puree into your mixing bowl., and add cashew butter, sugar, sucanat, corn starch, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Process until smooth.

Pour this into your pie crust and bake at 350F for 45 minutes.

I found that the center was still a bit jiggly so I left it in for an extra 15 minutes, but I think that was a mistake. Take it out by 50 minutes and let it finish baking on the counter top.

We served it with fresh agave whipped cream – sooo yummy. As my daughter said: “Mommy, I don’t like this pie. I LOVE it!!!” I take that as a good sign.

Next time I’d like to try it with a homemade coconut oil pie crust (yes, it does work!) to make it fully vegan. All I had on hand this time was a ready-made pie crust, so that’s what I used.

The original recipe recommends this vegan flaky pie crust – I haven’t tried it yet, but it sure looks good!