Caramel Sweet Potato Pie

Sweet potato.
Ironic name for a veg that ain't too pretty.
You wouldn't want to be caught out in public with this rusty coloured veg.

However, what it lacks in good looks (cosmetic surgery could help), it makes up in flavour. I am a massive fan of just baking a potato, cutting it open and sprinkling some brown sugar all over it till it melts into the smooth flesh. Just typing this is making me pretty hungry.
Whilst thinking about what kind of a recipe would be good for this, I saw a half opened can of condensed milk in the fridge. I decided that the sugar would help my thought process, so I ate about half of it with a spoon (do it, you know you want to).
This lead me to my Dory Greenspan book of baking, if you are going to make a pie, an american pie is the way to go.
Funnily enough there are no recipes for sweet potato pie in her book, just a plethora of pumpkin pies. So I decided to adapt her recipe for caramel pumpkin pie to use with my sweet tats.

 A word of warning: If you like caramel you are going to have some serious issues with not eating half of the recipe before its cooked. ( I had to make a second batch I ate so much)

Caramel Sweet Potato Pie
(adapted from Dory Greenspan' Baking; from my home to yours)

Ingredients

3 medium to large sweet potatoes (you can use canned stuff, but in the UK I think thats pretty hard to get hold of)
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
3/4 cup (180ml) double cream
2 tblspns (25g) butter
1 tspn ground ginger
1 tspn cinnamon
1 tspn vanilla essence
2 large eggs

For the pastry you either want a pack of shop bought short crust pastry or you can use the same recipe I used for my lemon meringue pie.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F). Roll out your pastry and line a cake/ pie tin with it, then pour in enough baking beans or dried beans to cover the base. Blind bake for 30 minutes. Once baked leave to cool.
2. Peel the sweet potato and cut into rough chunks. Place on a baking tray and lightly cover with some vegetable oil. Bake for 30 minutes or until tender, being careful not to let them brown. You can make the sweet potato ahead of time or bake at the same time as the pastry.
3. Once the potato is baked, let it cool and then mash or puree and set aside.
4. In a pan put your 1 cup of sugar and make the caramel. This should only take about 5 minutes for the sugar to be the colour you want so watch it carefully and don't put the heat too high or it will burn. I usually let the sugar get to a light caramel colour so as to avoid the burnt taste.
5. Once the caramel is ready add the cream and stir. Don't be afraid of the bubbles, just keep stirring and it will eventually settle down. Add the butter to the caramel and stir until it is melted and smooth. Put aside to cool.
6. In a bowl mash up your sweet potato until smoothish. Add the rest of the sugar, cinnamon, ginger and vanilla essence and beat together.
7. Add the eggs to the potato mix and beat well. Then add the caramel to it, making sure everything is well mixed.
8. Pour into your baked pastry case and bake at 180C for 35 minutes. The top will have raised and a knife should come out clean. Serve with cream or ice cream.