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  • From: "Alliums" <garlicgrower AT green-logic.com>
  • To: "'Market Farming'" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Shoofly Pie -- the history, the recipes!!!
  • Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 21:57:24 -0500

Hi, Folks!


Jill Bussiere wrote

<< But reading this
thread, I think about how I make the wet-bottom shoo-fly pie, and I do end
up dribbling the molasses in a sort of "web" pattern in order to cover the
bottom! So maybe we can have a new label for the wet-bottom. >>

I am now realizing what a sweet tooth my grandfather (Church of the
Brethren) had -- "dribbling," heck -- there was a POOL of molasses at the
bottom of that pie when he made a wet-bottom shoofly pie. Of course, since
I thought that was how it was done, I admit to having a heavy hand with the
molasses also - no wonder my mother doesn't like them! ;-)

Here is a standard shoofly pie recipe that uses spices like we always made,
although I think we used more molasses.

http://www.recipesource.com/baked-goods/desserts/pies/15/rec1519.html

Pennsylvania Dutch ShooFly Pie

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 8 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Pies Desserts

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1/2 c Baking Molasses
1/2 ts Baking Soda
3/4 c Flour
2 tb Butter
1/8 ts Ground Ginger
1/2 ts Cinnamon
1 ea Pastry for 9 inch pie
1 ea Egg Yolk
3/4 c Boiling Water
1/2 c Brown Sugar
1/8 ts Nutmeg
1/8 ts Ground Cloves
1/4 ts Salt

Dissolve soda in boiling water and add to egg and molasses. Set aside.
Stir dry ingredients together, mixing well. Cut in shortening until
mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Pour molasses into pie shell.
Sprinkle
crumbs evenly over top. Do not stir. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes
then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake 20 minutes longer. Cool and
serve.

Here is some history that sounds mostly right (that chocolate thing is a
little strange -- I think they do it for the tourists -- my grandfather
would not have approved.) I've never had it served with whipped cream,
either -- or heard that the French had *anything* to do with it. The
explanation that I always heard is that the PA Dutch love their pies, so
Shoofly Pie was made in the winter as a breakfast dish when the fruit ran
out. I always used this excuse to be able to eat apple pie at breakfast and
the really scary thing is that my mother accepted this as a rational excuse
for this behavior!

http://www.amishnews.com/amisharticles/shooflypie.htm

Shoofly Pie

Perhaps no other single dessert is so identified with Amish Country as is
the shoofly pie. First-time visitors always want to know what it is.

We might say it is more like a coffee cake, with a gooey molasses bottom.
This bottom can be thick or barely visible, hence we refer to pies as
wet-bottom or dry-bottom. Some cooks put chocolate icing on top for a
chocolate shoofly pie. Some use spices; some don't. There does seem to be
agreement that they are best slightly warmed with a major dab of whipped
cream on top. There are even recipes for shoofly cake.

Shoofly pies can be tasted in most of the area restaurants, where you can
usually buy one to take home as well. Most people find them very sweet, what
with all that molasses and brown sugar. If you like sweet desserts, you'll
probably love shoofly pie.

But how did these pies get their name? The most logical explanation seems to
be that the sweet ingredients attracted flies when the pies were cooling.
The cooks had to "shoo" the flies away, hence the name shoofly pie.

Another story claims that this is really a French recipe, and that the crumb
topping of the pie resembled the surface of the cauliflower, which is
"cheux-fleur" in French. This was eventually pronounced as shoofly. Locals
have a little problem with that explanation, and most of us have never seen
this pie served up in the fine restaurants of Paris.

No less an authority on things Pennsylvania Dutch than John Joseph Stoudt
states clearly that shoofly pies "are soundly Pennsylvanian, made in the
earlier days with sorghum, later with molasses, and with brown rather than
granulated sugar." Phyllis Pellman Good, in her book Amish Cooking, feels
that these pies may have been common because "this hybrid cake within a pie
shell" faired better in the old style bake ovens after the bread had been
baked. With modern kitchen stoves, temperatures could be controlled and the
more standard, lighter pies developed.

Who cares? The important thing is to try some. Here is a "classic" recipe,
which uses New Orleans molasses (French after all?). Be sure to use a good,
thick molasses….

Mix for crumbs: (reserving ½ cup for topping)
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon solid shortening
1 cup flour

Filling:
1 cup molasses (good and thick)
¾ cup boiling water
1 egg beaten
1 Teaspoon baking soda

Combine soda with boiling water, then add egg and syrup. Add crumb mixture
(this will be lumpy). Pour into unbaked pie crust and cover with reserved
crumbs. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to
350 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for an additional 35-45 minutes (until
firm). When cut into, the bottom may be "wet." This is okay, and is called a
"wet bottom shoo fly pie."

Amish Country News Article by Brad Igou


My mother actually has a shoofly cake recipe and the cupcakes are pretty
standard around here at covered dish dinners, but I'll defer to Jill's
family recipe as we're more "apple crisp" people! ;-)

Dorene

Dorene Pasekoff, Coordinator
St. John's United Church of Christ Organic Community Garden and Labyrinth

A mission of
St. John's United Church of Christ, 315 Gay Street, Phoenixville, PA 19460






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