A very warm welcome to Peggy Ehrhart, author of the Knit & Nibble Mysteries. She has outdone herself today with a fabulous step-by-step guide to baking a Shoo Fly Pie. It sounds and looks delicious. And don't miss entering her giveaway of A FATAL YARN.
In A Fatal Yarn,
Bettina’s sweet husband Wilfred bakes a shoo fly pie when the Knit and Nibblers
meet at the Frasers’ house. As he explains, it’s an Amish recipe—and delicious
as it is, it’s an example of make-do cooking when there’s no fresh fruit or
much else available for pie fillings. Now we can get almost any fruit or
vegetable at almost any time in our supermarkets, but in the past cooking had
to be seasonal.
The key ingredients are brown sugar, molasses, egg,
and baking soda. The name reportedly alludes to the fact that a pie made with
little but molasses and brown sugar would inevitably draw flies when cooled on
a porch or windowsill.
This version of the pie bakes up with an almost
cake-like texture. Another version, known as “wet-crust,” features a soggy
bottom.
You’ll need a deep-dish pie pan.
Ingredients
For the pie dough:
1 ¼ cups sifted flour
¼ tsp. salt
4 oz. cold butter—one stick
3 to 5 tbsp ice water
1 egg yolk, slightly beaten (optional)
For the filling:
½ cup brown sugar, firmly packed
½ cup molasses
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 ½ tsp flour
½ tsp baking soda
1 cup boiling water
For the topping:
1 ½ cups flour
¾ cup brown sugar, firmly packed
¾ tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
6 tbsp cold butter
First make the pie dough:
Sift the flour and salt into a medium sized bowl. Add
the butter cut into chunks.
Use your fingers to work the butter into the flour
mixture until the mixture looks crumbly.
Sprinkle the ice water over the flour mixture while
tossing with a fork until the dough clings together but isn’t wet.
Flour your hands and mold the dough into a ball. Wrap
it with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 20 minutes.
Note that this dough uses butter as shortening rather
than vegetable shortening or lard and it has a larger proportion of shortening
to flour than usual, so it’s a good idea to chill it before you roll it out.
Make the filling:
Mix brown sugar, molasses, egg, flour, and baking
soda.
Add the boiling water and stir thoroughly. Set the
filling aside.
Make the topping:
Mix flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt. Add the
butter cut into chunks and work it in as you did for the pie crust. Set the
topping aside.
Heat the oven to 450 degrees.
Prepare the pie crust:
With your hands, press the chilled dough into a flat
disk. Use flour liberally to keep the dough from sticking to your work surface
and to your hands.
Roll the pie dough into a circle about 14” in
diameter. Continue to use flour to keep the dough from sticking—both to your
rolling pin and to your work surface. To easily transfer the rolled-out dough
to the pie pan, fold it into quarters and then unfold it in the pie pan.
Turn under the crust that overhangs the edge of your
pie pan and use two fingers of your left hand and your right thumb to make a
decorative border.
Shoo fly pie filling is very liquid, so in order to
prevent your crust from becoming soggy, prebake the crust before adding the
filling and topping. To do this, line the crust with foil and fill the foil
with dried beans or peas.
I have a special jar of split peas and lentils that
I’ve used for this purpose for decades.
Bake the crust for 15 minutes. Remove it from the oven
and remove the foil and dried beans or peas from the crust. Optionally, brush
the bottom and sides of the partly baked crust with the slightly beaten egg
yolk. This step helps keep the crust from becoming soggy. Return the crust to
the oven and bake it for 5 more minutes.
(If you skip the egg yolk step, bake the crust for 20
minutes with the foil and beans or peas in it.)
Remove the crust from the oven and turn the oven down
to 350 degrees.
Add the filling
and then the topping.
Smooth the topping to cover the whole pie. Return the
pie to the oven and bake it for 45 minutes. Remove it from the oven.
Let the pie cool before cutting into it, though it’s
good served a bit warm.
Top each slice with whipped cream or a scoop of
vanilla ice cream. If you’re using whipped cream, a teaspoon of sugar per cup
of cream is plenty.
Enter Peggy's giveaway of A FATAL YARN by leaving a comment below with your email address so she can find you if you win. Good Luck!
