Here's How To Choose Just The Right Sweet Potatoes For Your Pie

When you're baking up a sweet potato pie, not just any kind of sweet potatoes will do. Ideally, you want a variety that's soft, sweet, and moist, because those will yield a perfectly sweet and silky pie filling, without the need for tons of sugar. There are a few tricks to finding the perfect sweet potatoes when shopping at your local store. 

Darker-colored sweet potatoes are generally the sweetest, so they'll taste the best in your pie. To find these, you'll want to look out for a "yam" label. Sweet red and orange sweet potatoes are sometimes mislabeled as yams, though yams and sweet potatoes are actually different species. To check the color of a sweet potato's flesh, you can lightly scratch at the outer skin. If you wear off a tiny bit of the skin to reveal the inner flesh, you can tell how light or dark the potato is. If you don't want to scratch the potatoes, the outer color of the produce is also a pretty good indicator of sweetness. Sweet potatoes with dark, vibrantly-colored skins are generally sweeter than their lighter-colored counterparts.

There are a few different varieties of sweet potatoes, and some are far better than others for baking up in a pie. When at the grocery store or a farmer's market, try to look for the Red Garnet or Jewel variety. These sweeter species will typically have a deeper orange or red outer skin, and a darker color inside. When cooked, they are a little more moist than some other sweet potato varieties, which can be beneficial to the smooth texture of your pie filling.

While purple sweet potatoes may bring a fun color to your dessert, they aren't optimal for baking a pie in terms of texture. Purple, Japanese, and Sweet Hannah varieties are all a little more starchy than other sweet potatoes, and take on a fluffy texture similar to russet potatoes when cooked. Instead of baking them into a rich pie, these potatoes are better used for making mashed sweet potatoes.

If you do wind up with sweet potatoes that aren't quite as sweet or moist as you'd hoped, there are a few ways to enhance the flavor and texture of your pie. To sweeten things up a little, simply adjust the amount of sugar and add a bit more than the recipe calls for. If you want an ultra-creamy texture in your pie, try adding a little cream cheese into the filling. Or, prior to mixing, you can boil the chunks of sweet potato in seasoned milk or cream instead of water. As the sweet potato softens in the liquid, the chunks will absorb a little bit of the dairy, taking on a creamier texture once they're mashed up for the filling.

When you're serving the pie, don't forget about toppings that can enhance the taste, too. Adding a little bit of whipped cream on every slice is an easy and classic way to dress up your dessert. You can make it more special by whipping your own cream and flavoring it. Try folding in some marshmallow fluff, infusing it with flavorings like vanilla, or sprinkling in some cinnamon before topping off your pie.