Sweet Potato Pie

2.5 lbs sweet potatoes, peeled and quartered
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup maple sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened plain almond milk
1/4 cup bourbon
1 Tbs olive oil
2.5 Tbs cornstarch
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp pink Himalayan salt

1)  Bring sweet potatoes and enough water to cover by 1 inch to a boil in large saucepan. Boil 15 to 20 minutes, or until very soft. Drain, and cool.
2)  Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare pie pan with your favorite pie crust (or ready made!).
3)  Transfer sweet potatoes to a food processor bowl. Add all remaining ingredients and cover. Mix on low until smooth and creamy. This may require a few stops to push ingredients down - this gets thick quite quickly.
4)  Pour filling into crust and smooth the top with a spoon.
5)  Bake 60 to 70 minutes, or until crust is light golden brown and filling is jiggly, with some cracks on top.
6)  Cool completely before loosely covering with a paper towel and foil (the paper towel will catch any moisture). Chill 4 to 6 hours, or overnight.

Review: I originally made this Thanksgiving 2016. The recipe instructions were to put the sweet potatoes though the blender. I'm not sure why that was the instruction, when sweet potatoes don't move in a blender. I had to transfer everything to the food processor and had twice as many dirty dishes!! Even then, the recipe was bland. I made it again for Christmas, but added a little bit of bourbon. It was still fairly bland, but better. So, this time I used 1/4 cup of bourbon (I prefer Knob Creek). The mixing bowl suddenly became quite soupy! I was quite relieved when it set up well once it was baked. It was the perfect addition and really pulled the pie together. This is a nice alternative to pumpkin pie, as it's similar in taste but is a bulkier pie (and not as sweet!!). This finally earned itself a post on the blog!

Adapted from:
Vegetarian Times, November/December 2016 issue, Blender Sweet Potato Pie