Sweet Potato Gingersnap Streusel Pie

Auntie LaLa's Note:

This is a twist on the traditional sweet potato pie, with the addition of cream cheese, a luscious cinnamon streusel topping and a yummy 'bonus' layer of crushed gingersnaps on top of a store-bought graham cracker crust. I merged together several recipes I found, with this being the end result...and my first ever sweet potato pie! Enjoy!

• Total Time: 1 hrs 10 mins
• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Cook Time: 50 mins

Ingredients:

Serves: 8

Yield: 1.0 pie

Filling

• 1 1/2 cups mashed sweet potatoes (baked or boiled)
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons light maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon orange juice
• 1/2 cup 2% low-fat evaporated milk
• 4 ounces softened light cream cheese
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Streusel

• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons wheat flour
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans
• 1/4 cup crushed gingersnap cookie (same size as pecans-not too fine!)

Crust

• 1 store-bought deep dish graham cracker crust

Crust topping

• 1/2 cup crushed gingersnap cookie
• 1 tablespoon butter

Directions:

1. Place cookie sheet on oven rack. Heat oven to 425°F
2. For filling, mash or process baked (peeled) sweet potatoes, set aside. Cream brown sugar and cream cheese, add remaining filling ingredients and sweet potatoes, mix until smooth.
3. For crust topping, crush gingersnap cookies (in ziploc with rolling pin or with food processor). Cut butter into crushed cookies until crumbly. Sprinkle over bottom of store-bought crust.
4. Poor sweet potato mixture into prepared pie crust. Bake on cookie sheet 15 minutes. Reduce oven temp to 350F; bake 20 minutes longer. Meanwhile, in small bowl, mix streusel ingredients, cutting in butter until crumbly. Carefully sprinkle streusel over pie filling. Bake 10-15 minutes longer or until knife inserted in center comes out clean and streusel is golden brown. Cool completely, about 3 hours. Serve with whipped cream, if desired. Store covered in refrigerator.

Reviews

[Chef #476749]

Very good; my husband loved it. I was looking for a low fat but tasty recipe for our Thanksgiving dessert, and this was a great choice. I didn't have a graham cracker crust, so I just crumbled some home-made pecan sandy cookies over the bottom of the pie plate before pouring in the filling. I used these in the streusel too, but did not add extra nuts, as they were already in the cookies. The streusel really made this pie, and the texture of the filling was great.