Friday, September 17, 2010

Wet Bottom Shoo Fly Pie

Who ever knows why I decided to make this pie last night. I have never had it nor did I have a craving for a molasses based dessert. I guess I just liked the name. Shoo Fly pie is of Pennsylvania Amish and Dutch origin. It is very very very sweet with the two main ingredients being molasses and (dark) brown sugar (While either light or dark brown sugar can be used, dark has more molasses in it). Since the settlers came to America by boat, they brought lots of non-perishable ingredients. These ingredients became the ingredients found in Shoo Fly pie. Nobody knows the exact origin of the name of this pie, but it is thought that the name comes from the fact that, if eaten outside, you will probably have to shoo away the flies. The term "wet bottom" comes from the fact that the filling soaks into the crust while baking, leaving it nice and gooey.

I would recommend eating the pie with ice cream. We had it with coffee ice cream.

And here's the recipe, which is derived from http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/recipes/dessert_shoofly.html:

Ingredients
1 9" unbaked pie crust- After struggling for what feels like forever making the perfect pie crust, I finally found a wonderful recipe. It's from Martha Stewart and can be found here: http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/our-favorite-pie-crust
1 cup all-purpose flour
Two-thirds cup light brown sugar, packed
1 rounded tablespoon cold butter
One-fourth teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup light molasses
Three-fourths cup cold water
One-fourth cup hot water
1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:
1- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Roll out the pie pastry and line a 9-inch pie pan; set aside.2- In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, butter, and salt. Remove one-half cup of the mixture and set aside. 
3- Leave the rest in the mixing bowl. 
4- In a small bowl, beat the egg lightly. 
5- Put the molasses and cold water together and blend, but do not beat; you don’t want bubbles in the batter. Set aside.
6- In a small bowl, mix the hot water with the baking soda and blend into the molasses mixture. 
7- Add the molasses mixture to the flour mixture and mix well. 
8- Pour into the pie shell and top with the reserved crumbs. Bake for 35 minutes. The pie will appear quivery but will firm up as it cools. Transfer to a rack to cool completely before cutting.

1 comment:

  1. umm, sounds like your pie didn't turn out as it should've. "Wet bottom" doesn't come "from the fact that the filling soaks into the crust while baking, leaving it nice and gooey". There are two kinds of Shoofly pie. The first can be more closely compared to a coffee cake in a pieshell. A wet bottom is more like a very rich pecan pie that is topped with the same coffee cake topping instead of pecans. Nothing should soak into the crust. If it does, it's something went wrong.

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