Why It Works
- The thick texture of true molasses ensures that the topping sinks into the liquid step by step because the pie bakes, creating three distinct layers: a crumbly high, a spiced cake within the center, and a gooey molasses backside.
- Coating flour and brown sugar with shortening produces a fragile, crisp crumb topping.
- Baking the pie on a rimmed baking sheet prevents the new molasses filling from oozing over the oven ground.
Pies are a giant a part of Pennsylvania Dutch Nation tradition: Within the space round northeastern and south central elements of Pennsylvania in addition to the Delaware Valley, which is the place my household comes from, you may discover freshly baked pies at markets, farm shops, Amish reward retailers, and makeshift stands alongside the facet of the highway. There are fruit pies, custard pies, cake pies, and milk pies. Walnut and snitz (dried apple) pies. Savory corn, parsley, and hen pot pies. And much and plenty of whoopie pies, which are not actually pies in any respect. However nothing is sort of as in style as shoofly pie which, as chef Betty Groff remarks in her 1990 Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook, has bought to be the “best-known pie” from the area.
What Is Shoofly Pie?
Shoofly pie is actually a molasses pie that’s topped with a cinnamon-spiced crumble. A part of the crumble sinks into the pie step by step because it bakes, making a cake-like layer within the center with a gooey molasses backside. The remaining crumble turns into a crisp, powdery topping, and the result’s a confection that delivers sticky, cakey, and crunchy layers in every chunk. Although you’ll sometimes see shoofly pie on dessert menus, particularly at Lancaster County’s well-known smorgasbords, many Pennsylvanians take into account it a breakfast pie. (Previous cookbooks, together with Edna Eby Heller’s 1966 The Dutch Cookbook, describe the pie as “good for dunking” in a cup of morning espresso.)
In his 2013 e-book As American As Shoofly Pie, historian William Woys Weaver notes that shoofly pie first appeared on the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the place it was referred to as Centennial Cake. The title “shoofly pie” appeared a lot later; although its quirky title is usually attributed to the act of “shooing” bugs away from the sticky-sweet dish, it possible stems from the once-popular model Shoofly Molasses Co., which in flip reportedly took its title from “Shoofly the Boxing Mule,” a circus act that toured Pennsylvania within the late 1800s. (After all, there is a good likelihood that Shoofly the mule took his title from the act of shooing flies, taking the title full circle.)
There are quite a few variations of shoofly pie. The 1969 Amish-Dutch Cookbook by Ruth Redcay options 4 shoofly pie recipes, every various barely within the quantity of sugar, flour, and syrup to supply pies with completely different textures. Equally, Heller’s The Dutch Cookbook consists of three variations. “There’s a shoo-fly pie to go well with each style,” Heller writes. “Dry, moist, and in-between.” Dry shoofly pies sometimes combine a number of the flour topping into the molasses for a extra cake-like consistency all through, whereas the moist ones—that are generally known as “wet-bottom” pies—have a satisfyingly gooey molasses layer on the underside.
The recipe I’m sharing beneath is for my favourite variation: a wet-bottom shoofly pie, which has a thick layer of molasses nestled between the cake and crust after it’s baked, together with a crumbly topping for a number of layers that work superbly collectively. Right here’s how you can make it.
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5 Suggestions for Making Shoofly Pie
Rub shortening into the sugar and flour for the topping. One of the simplest ways to arrange the crumble topping is precisely what it seems like: rubbing flour and fats collectively till crumbly, simply as you’d for shortcake. This coats the flour with fats and limits gluten development for a fragile topping and a light-weight, cake-like center layer. You need to use a pastry blender for this step, however I favor to make use of my arms, which permits me to get a greater really feel for the scale of the shortening and ensures the crumble has a breadcrumb-like consistency with no massive chunks of fats remaining. (Small strands or pea-sized items are OK.)
For the crumble elements, I am a fan of the strong taste of dark brown sugar, which comprises extra molasses than mild brown sugar and offers the pie an much more molasses-forward taste. You possibly can, nevertheless, substitute with mild brown sugar for a subtler tasting and lighter-colored pie. I exploit vegetable shortening to arrange the topping, as that’s what most Pennsylvanians use, however cubes of chilly, unsalted butter or lard will work simply as properly.
Chill the pie crust—and skip the blind bake. One of the crucial unlucky issues that may occur when making pie is a crust that shrinks because it bakes, leaving you with an unpleasant, bare rim across the pie plate. In my recipe beneath, I name for chilling the crust for not less than an hour, adopted by a brief freeze. This enables the gluten to loosen up and prevents the crust from contracting because the pie bakes. Freezing additionally ensures that the dough stays chilly when it is available in contact with the new molasses filling, decreasing the danger of the new filling melting elements of the unbaked crust and making a soggy backside because the pie bakes.
To make sure the crust is crisp and correctly cooked, many open-faced pie recipes instruct bakers to blind bake the crust earlier than pouring within the filling. Conventional Pennsylvania Dutch “moist backside” pies, nevertheless, sometimes don’t embrace a blind baking step. As a substitute, cooks begin baking the crammed pie at about 400ºF or 204ºC, earlier than reducing the temperature midway by means of. This provides the crust a head begin and ensures it’s correctly cooked, whereas the decreased temperature in direction of the tip of baking helps to set the filling.
Use true molasses. Molasses is available in two varieties: true molasses and blackstrap. Whereas blackstrap is bitter and salty, true molasses is smoky, bittersweet, and barely acidic. I like to recommend making shoofly pie filling with true unsulphured molasses. (Sulphured molasses is usually made with inexperienced sugarcane; producers typically protect the sugarcane by treating it with sulfur dioxide earlier than the ingredient undergoes the sugar extraction course of. Unsulphured molasses, however, is often made with ripe sugarcane that’s prepared for processing and isn’t handled with sulfur dioxide.)
As a result of I reside within the UK, the place molasses is just not as available as it’s within the US, I additionally examined with shoofly pie with darkish corn syrup, which didn’t fare properly. As a result of corn syrup is thinner than molasses, it isn’t in a position to stand up to the load of the crumble. The topping, in consequence, sinks to the underside too shortly, creating a very cakey filling.
Corn syrup additionally lacks the deep caramel notes of molasses, so the pie’s taste was one dimensional and saccharine. With that in thoughts, I don’t suggest utilizing simply corn syrup, however for those who’d like a lighter, sweeter pie, you possibly can substitute a number of the molasses with corn syrup in your filling. In the event you go that route, I like to recommend changing 25% of the molasses (55 grams in my recipe beneath) with corn syrup.
One other ingredient I experimented with is treacle syrup, which is barely sweeter and thicker than molasses. Although the 2 syrups aren’t an identical, treacle is usually used within the UK to realize a equally candy and smoky taste in recipes like gingerbread or gingersnap cookies. My treacle check produced a deliciously wealthy, darkish, and bittersweet pie that was related sufficient to molasses to make it substitution when you have entry to it and need to play with the recipe.
Bake the pie on a rimmed baking sheet. Except you need to spend a day scrubbing sticky molasses off the ground of your oven, I strongly suggest you bake your pie on a rimmed baking sheet. (Do not ask me how I do know.) A baking sheet means that you can switch the unbaked pie from the kitchen counter to the oven with minimal sloshing. However extra importantly, it should shield your oven from the new syrup that may bubble and ooze because the pie bakes.
Let the pie cool correctly. Although its gingerbread scent is attractive, do your finest to withstand slicing scorching shoofly pie. The filling units because the pie cools, so it’s essential to attend till it reaches room temperature. (It is OK if the underside nonetheless feels barely heat, however not more than that, otherwise you’ll end up dealing with a liquidy mess.) It is a true check of willpower, however properly well worth the wait.
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