Sometimes in life, we have to improvise. Unexpected things pop up; detours must be taken. Our path is blocked. Recipes don’t go according to plan.

Like when you run out of sugar.

And you’re in the middle of baking three pies.

And you’ve already dumped in most of your (not inexpensive) ingredients.

In keeping with our new baking tradition, Spencer and I felt adventurous and decided to try our hand at a sweet potato pie. My friend Sandy, a talented baker, had dropped a sweet potato muffin on my desk earlier that day — and just saying “sweet potato” to Spence was inspirational.

After gathering together what we believed to be all the necessary ingredients, I began to measure the white sugar called for in our recipe. Since we’d decided to really go for the gusto and actually make three pies at once, I was tripling everything.

Unfortunately, there was no tripling that little mound of sugar left in the container.

“Why doesn’t this call for brown sugar?” Spencer scanned the sheet over and over. “Doesn’t it seem like it should have brown sugar?”

Yes, I agreed. It does. So let’s do this.

Taking the total sugar content down by a third, we substituted 1 cup of white sugar for 1/3 cup of white and 1/3 cup of brown — and the end result? Totally delicious. Sweet but not too sweet; warm; cozy; completely fall-like. An awesome addition to any meal this autumn, and possibly a substitute for all diners who find themselves a little pumpkin’ed-out.

No Thanksgiving is complete without a slice of pumpkin pie, I’ll grant you that, but for all those other days? Give sweet potato a whirl. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Megan & Spencer’s Sweet(ie) Sweet Potato Pie

Adapted from Sweet Potato Pie I on Allrecipes.com