Old-Fashioned Amish Bread Pie

Jump to Recipe

Old-fashioned Amish bread pie is a classic “Great Depression" pie.  Most Amish families were hit hard by the Great Depression and recipes that were inventive and creative but still satisfied the sweet tooth were in high demand. This is actually one of the first recipes I was given when made one of my first trips into Amish Country 30 years ago. Geez, that makes me sound old!

Truly, this is about the easiest pie you’ll ever make and it is very good.  Somehow, it works.   All you need for this recipe is a pie crust, and you can use the easy part a pan pie crust. Then all you need is some bread, four or five slices would do it.  It can be stale, it can be fresh, it can be multi-grain, it can be wheat, it can be white, whatever you have on hand. Even an old loaf of French bread or a baguette would work.

Fill a pie crust to the top with crumbled bread.

And then you just crumble the bread into the pie crust until you fill it with shredded crumbled bread. Fill the crust with milk. Now you could just use the sugar and flour it and cinnamon and that’s all you would need and you have a great pie. I'm not quite sure what purpose the flour serves, just makes sure, though, that you get the flour mix in with the milk before you put it in the oven. You don't want just dry, loose flour on top of the pie after it's done baking.

I also added a fourth cup of molasses, just to add a little bit more flavor, and I thought it really worked well so I’m including it in the formal recipe. But if you are not a molasses fan, feel free to leave out.

If you are on a gluten-free diet, use gluten-free bread in this. And, to me, it’s just amazing how good of a pie this especially considering that you will have only spent about 10 minutes making it. Or less. And it's really just bread and milk and some sweetener.

The pie slices really nicely and the bread bakes nicely and sweetly. I guess it is like bread pudding in a pie crust.

Make sure when you bake the pie to put something under it to catch any liquid splatter and make sure you really bake the pie. When you finally take it out of the oven it shouldn't be very liquidy, a butter knife stuck in the middle should come out nice and clean. I highly recommend whipped topping on the final product.

🥧 Old-Fashioned Amish Bread Pie

4 - 5 slices of bread (about 2 crumbled cups)

6 teaspoons of sugar

1 tablespoon flour

1 tablespoon cinnamon

¼ cup molasses (optional)

Enough milk to fill a pie crust (approx 5 cups)

📋 Instructions

Crumble bread to fill the pie crust.

Sprinkle sugar, flour and cinnamon over the bread.

Swirl molasses over the mixture.

Pour milk into the crust until you reach just below the rim of the crust.

Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

🥧 More Amish Pie Recipes

Tears On Your Pillow Pie

Sawdust Pie

Cinnamon Cream Pie

🖨️ Full Recipe