Recipe - Crunchy Sweet Potato Pie

1 One half pound Sweet potatoes
One half cup Almond brickle bits
2 cup Flour
One half teaspoon Salt
6 tablespoon Butter, sweet; chilled
1/3 cup Crisco; chilled
4 tablespoon ;Water, ice
1 One half cup Halfandhalf
4 lg Egg
One fourth cup Dark rum
1/3 cup Sugar, brown, dark; packed
1/3 cup Sugar, white
One fourth cup Butter; melted
One half teaspoon Nutmeg, ground
1/8 teaspoon Mace
1/3 cup Almond brickle bits
One fourth cup Almonds, cut or sliced up
Whipping cream; (garnish)

Bake scrubbed sweet potatoes at 350 F. for about one hour or until soft.
Peel and mash. This should yield 2 One half cups.

Put One half cup brickle bits in a spice grinder or food processor and process
until finely crushed. Combine with flour and salt in a bowl. Cut in the
butter and shortening until coarse crumbs form. Stir in enough ice water to
make a dough. Chill 30 minutes.

Roll 2/3 of the dough into an 11" circle. Fit into a 9" pie plate and trim
the edges. Use the remaining dough to form a rope edge to the crust. Line
the crust with foil and weight with dried beans. Bake about 10 minutes at
425 F., or until light golden. Remove beans and foil. Cool crust on a rack.
Reset oven to 350 F.

Combine sweet potatoes with the halfandhalf, eggs, rum, sugars, melted
butter, nutmeg, and mace in a food processor. Process until smooth. Pour
into the cooled pie crust and bake for 35 minutes.

Combine the remaining 1/3 cup candy with the cut or sliced up almonds. At the end of
35 minutes, sprinkle this mixture around the edge of the pie. Continue
baking pie 20 minutes more, or until a knife tests clean.

Cool pie, then refrigerate 2 hours or overnight. Let set at room
temperature for 30 minutes before serving. Garnish with whipped cream if
desired.

From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini