Pennsylvania Dutch Shoo Fly Pie

Visit the Lancaster area of Pennsylvania and indulge in a Pennsylvania Dutch original, the Shoofly Pie. Also know as Shoo-Fly Pie, and Shoo Fly Pie. First time visitors to the area always comment on this pie and its strange name. Most of the area restaurants and bakeries sell this favorite pie. The pie is more like a coffee cake, with a gooey molasses bottom. Some cooks put chocolate icing on top for a chocolate shoofly pie. Some use spices; some don't. Today, the biggest debate being whether to use a flaky or a mealy crust for the pie dough. The bottom of the pie can be thick or barely visible and is referred to as either a "wet bottom" or a "dry bottom." Everyone agrees the shoofly pie is best when slightly warmed and with whipped cream on top.

Pennsylvania Dutch cooking is indigenous to those areas of southeastern Pennsylvania that were settled by the Mennonites and Amish. William Penn (1644-1718), founder of Pennsylvania, was seeking colonists for the Pennsylvania area. The Amish and Mennonites both settled in Pennsylvania as part of William Penn's "holy experiment" of religious tolerance. He wanted to establish a society that was godly, virtuous and exemplary for all of humanity. Encouraged by William Penn’s open invitation to persecuted religious groups, various sects of Christian Anabaptists-Mennonites and offshoots such as the Amish and the Brethren-emigrated from Germany and Switzerland. The first sizeable group arrived in America around 1730 and settled near Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

These settlers were addicted to pies of all types and they ate them at any time of day. The most famous of their pies is the shoofly pie. As the very earliest settlers came to North America by boat, they brought with them the staples of their diet - long-lasting nonperishable that would survive a long boat trip. These staples were flour, brown sugar, molasses, lard, salt, and spices. Arriving in the new land during late fall, they had to live pretty much on what they had brought with them until the next growing season. The women, being master of the art of "making do," concocted a pie from the limited selection that could be found in the larder. This resourcefulness led to the creation of shoofly pie.

Shoofly pie seems to be a variation of the older Treacle Tart. Treacle is the British generic name for any syrup made during the refining of sugar cane; i.e., Treacle, Black Treacle, Molasses, Golden Syrup and Blackstrap are all treacles. During the 17th century, treacle was used chiefly as a cheap from of sweetener. By the late 1700s, refined sugar became affordable to the masses in Britain and overtook treacle as a general sweetener. Molasses was often substituted for treacle in colonial American recipes. Many early cookbooks have Molasses Pie recipes.

The origin of the name has been debated for years and will probably never ultimately be solved. The most logical explanation is related to the fact that during the early years of our country, all baking was done in big outdoor ovens. The fact that pools of sweet, sticky molasses sometimes formed on the surface of the pie while it was cooling, invariably attracting flies, show how such a pie could come to be called shoofly pie.

The wet bottomed recipe I used

Ingredients

1 cup flour

2/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1 tablespoon vegetable shortening

1 cup molasses, preferably unsulphered

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 cup hot water

1 teaspoon baking soda

9-inch pie shell, recipe follows

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Mix flour, brown sugar and shortening into crumbs with fingers, fork or pastry blender. Reserve 1/2 cup of crumbs for the top of the pie. To remaining crumbs, blend in the molasses, egg, and 3/4 cup hot water. Mix the baking soda with remaining 1/4 cup hot water and promptly add to mixture. Pour into unbaked pie shell and bake for 15 minutes. Top the pie with the reserved crumbs and reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F. and bake for an additional 40 minutes.

The pie can be served at room temperature or chilled.

Shoofly Pie Dough:

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups vegetable shortening

1 egg, beaten

1/3 cup cold water

1 tablespoon white vinegar

In a large bowl, mix together flour and salt. Cut in shortening until well incorporated. Add remaining ingredients and mix until well blended. Let rest a few minutes, then divide dough into 4 portions. Roll a dough disc out on a lightly floured surface and press into a 9-inch pie plate. Individually tightly cover and freeze remaining 3 portions of dough.

Pennsylvania Dutch (wet-bottomed) Shoo Fly Pie

Sliced and served with Almond Dream 

This pie makes me happy