A few months ago I was brainstorming for my Halloween recipe this year. A lot of crazy ideas and a previously captivating post by Practical Peculiarities lead me to this: Stitchy; the sweet potato and cherry pie. It was quite challenging to pull this off as I had a seriously busy month and couldn’t find any of the three main ingredients that I wanted to use for this recipe.

I couldn’t find pumpkin, but that was easy to overcome as I had made sweet potato pie before and it was actually sublime in texture and taste! I couldn’t find cherries, because cherry season was over here in Egypt. I couldn’t even find liquorice (snails/ropes) because I believe that for some unpublicized reason, Haribo stopped manufacturing them. I also don’t think that I had ever seen a two-layered closed pie before, so I had little reference to whether or not it was even going to be feasible.

Due to my insanely busy October, I tried to start slow and early by preparing the fillings and the pie crust dough and keeping them in the fridge for whenever I find the time to work on the pie. After four days of the fillings sitting in the fridge with no luck, I decided to freeze them. Then I defrosted them… Then I re-froze them… Then I defrosted them… And then I cut my thumb in a kitchen accident. Then I froze them. Then I dropped half of the filling in the freezer and at that point I was just starting to lose hope that Stitchy was ever going to be real.

It was quite ironic that I had to get stitches on my thumb, while my Halloween project was stitched up pie! Could I have foretold the future? 🔮 Spooky.

So… Enough of the backstory and let’s get to the recipe. A big warning though; I wasn’t planning to publish a full recipe for this, so I didn’t really measure and weigh everything properly 😁😅 It was mainly just for the photography. If you want to give it a go, let me know how it turns out!

• Ingredients:
  • For the pie crust (you will need to double these quantities to make a closed pie)
    • 2 cups (250 g) all purpose flour
      1/8 teaspoon salt
      1/2 cup (115 g) unsalted butter, cold and cut into 1-inch cubes
      1/4 cup (50 g) granulated white sugar
      1 large egg, lightly beaten
      1/4 cup (65g) ice-cold water
    • Egg wash (1 egg yolk, 1 Tbsp milk)
  • For the sweet potato filling:
    • 1kg sweet potatoes or yams, peeled, steamed or roasted and mashed
      1L whole milk
      100ml heavy cream
      100g granulated white sugar
      50g brown sugar
      1 Tbsp pumpkin spice mix (or mix your own), pinch of salt
      2 large eggs
    • For the cherry topping:
      • 250g dried cranberries, soaked in 500ml of water
        200g of black cherry jam
        50g granulated white sugar
        1 Tbsp corn starch
    • For decorating:
      • Liquorice “snails”
        Blanched almonds, peeled

• Method:
  • To make the pie crust dough, first cut the cold butter cubes into the dry ingredients (flour, sugar and salt) with a pastry blender or pulse it a few times in a food processor, until you get a wet sand consistency.
  • Add the egg and the water and knead until you have a cohesive mass of dough.
  • If you decided to make a closed pie and doubled the recipe, then cut it in half and form two 5-inch disks. Cover them in plastic wrap and refrigerate.
  • For the sweet potato filling, add the mashed sweet potatoes into a pot along with the milk, cream, sugar, pumpkin spice mix and salt.
  • Over medium heat continuously stir the filling until it thickens. (25-30 minutes)
  • Take off the heat and keep stirring occasionally until it cools down a little.
  • Add the eggs and mix them in well. Set the filling aside.
  • For the cherry topping:
  • Put the soaked cranberries in a saucepan over medium-low heat and simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated. (about 20 minutes).
  • Add the sugar and the black cherry jam and stir to thoroughly combine over low heat.
  • Remove the cherry topping off the heat.
  • Make a cornstarch slurry with 2 tablespoons of water and add it to the cherry topping mixture. Stir in well to combine. Set aside.
  • To roll out the pie crusts, use a floured counter top surface and flatten the first disk until it’s quarter of an inch thick and is large enough to cover your pie dish/pan with a little overhang.
  • Press the dough sheet into the dish/pan and optionally flute the edges. (I didn’t do that for mine, I just trimmed I along the edges of the pan.)
  • Now pour the completely cooled sweet potato filling into the pie crust bottom and be careful not over-fill it as you want to leave a little bit of room for the cherry topping.
  • Carefully ladle the cooled cherry topping over the sweet potato filling until it covers the whole surface.
  • At this point, you can choose to bake the pie in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for 25-30 minutes. Let it cool and you are ready to serve.
  • If you choose to make a closed pie, then keep the filled bottom crust aside or in the fridge while you prepare the top crust.
  • Roll out the second disk of dough to match the size of the first one. Cut a shape (that looks like a mouth in this case) and remove the cutout. Poke holes or make other decorations with the scraps and make the pie your own!
  • Close up the pie by carefully rolling up your decorated top crust and unrolling it back onto the rest of the pie.
  • Seal the edges and brush with egg wash.
  • Bake the pie in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for 35-40 minutes. Let it cool, add more decorations if you want (such as the liquorice threads and almond teeth) and you are ready to serve.
  • Indulge! 🎃🦇🕸️