Sweet Potato Cream Cheese Pie

As soon as I saw this sweet potato cream cheese pie recipe in the local newspaper a few months back I knew I needed to try it.  But I didn’t want to use a traditional flour pie crust.  I knew that a nutty pie crust would balance the sweetness of the filling, so I held off on trying the recipe until I found a crust that was all nuts and no flour.  A few other changes were made too.  Maple syrup was substituted for sugar in the filling and the spices were increased for extra flavor.

After researching nutty pie crusts I found one with all nuts, and enough butter to bind everything together.  It has a little bit of sugar which enhances the flavor and probably fuses it all together, though you could probably leave the sugar out if you wanted to.  Here’s how to do it:

Walnut Pie Crust

Walnut Crust:

1 and 1/2 cups ground walnuts (scant two cups ground in food processor)

3 T. melted butter

2 T. sugar

Combine all ingredients and press firmly into bottom and sides of a 9 inch pie plate.

Bake crust at 325 degrees for about 10 minutes.  Cool.

Pouring Filling into Crust

Filling:

8 oz cream cheese (I used Neufchatel)

1 cup mashed cooked sweet potato

1/2 cup maple syrup

1 T. flour (or 1 T. arrowroot)

1 tsp. cinnamon (rounded)

½ tsp. ginger

½ tsp. nutmeg

¼ tsp. cloves

3 large eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

Heat oven to 350F degrees.  Thoroughly mix all ingredients except eggs and vanilla.  Beat in eggs and vanilla and pour the mixture into the walnut crust.  Bake 40 minutes or until center is almost set.  Lower oven temperature to 325 so the crust doesn’t get too brown in the process and bake another 10 minutes.

Chill for at least 4 hours in the refrigerator before serving – overnight is best.  I do have to say it turned out scrumptiously delicious!