Schweeetttttt!

We just finished studying Soul Food in my eighth grade classes. For each cuisine they learn about; they do one lab experience (cornbread) and after their mini quiz on Friday they get one more demonstration of another food for them to see the preparation of it and to sample it. I've done grits, hoppin' john, jambalaya, fritters, hoe cakes and I wanted to try something new. I wanted to make sweet potato pie.

Here's the problem I can't make a pie, bake it, chill it and have them eat it all before they leave in 45 minutes. I had to do the TV magic thing and make one before to pull out when I put it in the oven. Then I thought of another thing...ugh...the slicing....the need for forks and plates and cutting one pie into 12 slices, etc. So I thought....why can't I make them into mini sweet potato pies?


And I did....

Here was my recipe adapted from allrecipes.com

Mini Sweet Potato Pies

Vanilla Wafers
1 (16 ounce) can mashed sweet potatoes
3/4 cup evaporated milk
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
2 eggs
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground nutmeg
Marshmallow Fluff

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Line each a 2 muffin tins with 18 muffin papers. Spray lightly with non stick spray. Put a vanilla wafer in each cup.

In a mixing bowl blend sweet potatoes, milk, sugar, corn syrup, eggs, butter, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg and beat with a electric hand mixer until smooth. Scoop filling into muffin cups with an ice cream scoop. Bake for 20 minutes or until set.

While pies are still hot place a dollop of fluff on each pie to melt. Place in refrigerator to chill.

The kids RAVED over these. I didn't like the fact that these looked more like pumpkin pie (being brown) and not orange from the sweet potatoes. When I do these again, I am going to use real sweet potatoes and not the canned ones which tend to be a dark brownish orange. The fluff was a bit sticky to peel off the paper....but most remained on the mini pie. Sadly, I wasn't able to taste them since my "plan" doesn't allow this kinda stuff....but if the kids were happy and begging for more, it worked for me.

Try your own favorite pie recipe filling as a mini version for the holidays!

Enjoy!