Sweet Potato deep dish delish

I don't typically like sweet potatoes but this was a dish that an aunt brought to Thanksgiving dinner a number of years ago and it was a hit!  I did not have her exact recipie so I came up with something that is very close.  This year we are celebrating Thanksgiving with a different side of the family but this dish is so much a favorite that I chose it as my go to for the Thanksgiving Celebration.

How to go from this to this  to this (using real sweet potatoes is the ONLY way to go!)

First I baked the 4 sweet potatoes at 375 for about an hour and a half.  I just stabbed them a time or two with a fork and put them on a cookie sheet, that's it!  I baked them until I could squeeze the outside and it was squishy (how do you like that technical term?)

Ingredients:
4-6 baked sweet potatoes
1/2 cup white sugar
2 beaten eggs
4 T softened butter
1/2 cup evaporated milk (can sub cream)
1 tsp vanilla

Topping: 
1 Cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup flour (can skip this for gluten free recipie)
6 T softened buter
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 325.  Scrape the potato out of the skin and put into a mixing bowl.  Add all other ingredients and mix well. (If you want super smooth with zero chunks you may want to puree the sweet potato in a food processor or blender first, I however, was satisfied with just mixing it really well)

Place mixture into a 9 x 13 casserole dish.  In a separate bowl mix ingredients for topping and sprinkle over sweet potato mixture.

Bake 30 minutes...then thank me!