Name: Sweet Potato Sonker With Milk Dip
Yield: 8–10 servings
Ingredients: 4 cups all-purpose flour; 1 tablespoon sugar; 2 teaspoons fine sea salt; 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, cold, cut into slices; 1 large egg; 1/2 cup ice-cold water; 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar; 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing the baking dish; 1/3 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting; 6 medium (about 3 pounds) sweet potatoes, peeled; 2 teaspoons salt; 1 1/2 cups sugar; 1 cup sorghum syrup; 3 cups whole milk; 2 tablespoons cornstarch; 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Sweet Potato Recipes for Thanksgiving A 13x9inch deepdish casserole with layers of sliced sweet potatoes a lattice top...

Photo by Chelsea Kyle, Prop Styling by Beatrice Chastka, Food Styling by Laura Rege

Some sonkers are made with a cakelike batter while others come with a pie crust. Among the crusters there are schisms as to whether a sonker has a top crust, a bottom crust, or both. And then there are a few devoted outliers who make their sonkers with no crust at all, but with delectable dumplings floating on top of a sauce of hot sweetened fruit. All sonkers seem to have in common a sweetened milk “dip” that is poured on top and baked to a glaze, although at least one sonker-maker makes the dip with moonshine.

Fillings can be made with any fruit or berry, but the two overwhelmingly preferred are peach and sweet potato. In her delightful cookbook Sweet Potatoes, April McGreger, founder-chef of the Farmer’s Daughter line of jams and condiments, offers a superb recipe for the latter. In keeping with the spirit of sonker riffing, however, Emily Hilliard, blogger at Nothing in the House, came up with a few change-ups for this version, including increasing the sorghum syrup for a deeper mountain note.

Cooks' Note

Feel free to use a different shaped baking dish, just as long as it has roughly the same capacity as a 13x9 and is about 2 inches deep.