I recently attended the "Founder's Day" celebration in the quaint little hamlet of Germantown, Ohio and stumbled into a classic Amish shoofly pie recipe. Â At the festival, which featured hot air balloons and bands, there was a pie booth with some local ladies selling slices of the typical fair fare: cherry, apple, and...shoofly? Â Yes, cherry, apple and others like it are staples at festivals and fairs. But shoofly? Â Not something you find much here in the Midwest. Â So I snagged a slice and was not disappointed. Â It was a classic Lancaster-style shoofly pie with a layer of molasses underneath a crumb-type topping. Â Ah, what a treat. It was the last slice which I heartily ate. Â The woman who made it said it was an old family recipe. Â She was supposed to email me the recipe, but I never heard from her (some people don't wish to part with old family recipes!). Â If there had been two slices I would have eaten one and taken the other home to reverse engineer the recipe.
Shoofly pies from Pennsylvania tender to be more moist than their drier, crumblier midwestern cousins. Â But both are delicious. Â Some variations in shoofly pies can be found. Â I've seen "chocolate shoofly pie" in several Mennonite bakeries.
Like molasses? Read about the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 here.
Here is a classic Amish shoofly pie recipe.
- 1 9-inch pie crust (homemade or store-bought)
- 1 cup molasses
- ⅔ cup boiling water
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- Topping:
- 3½cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup sugar
- ¾ cup shortening, softened
- Dash of salt
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- In a large bowl, combine the molasses, boiling water, and baking soda.
- Pour the mixture into the unbaked pie shell.
- To make the topping: In a large bowl, mix the flour with the sugar, shortening, and salt.
- Spread this on top of the molasses mixture in the pie shell.
- Bake until the center of the pie is set, about 45 minutes.
- Cool on a wire rack or windowsill until the pie is firm, about 45 minutes.
- Store any leftovers in a sealed cake safe.
- The pie will keep for about 5 days
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Bonnie P.
I love shoo fly pie though it is not seen very often here in GA. The wet bottom pie is the best in my opinion.