Shoofly pie (or shoo-fly pie) is a fluffy molasses pie considered traditional among the Pennsylvania Dutch and also known in Southern cooking.
Shoofly pies can be tasted in most of the area restaurants, where you can usually buy one to take home as well. Most people find them very sweet, what with all that molasses and brown sugar. If you like sweet desserts, you'll probably love shoofly pie.
But how did these pies get their name? The most logical explanation seems to be that the sweet ingredients attracted flies when the pies were cooling. The cooks had to "shoo" the flies away, hence the name shoofly pie.
Another story claims that this is really a French recipe, and that the crumb topping of the pie resembled the surface of the cauliflower, which is "cheux-fleur" in French. This was eventually pronounced as shoofly. Locals have a little problem with that explanation, and most of us have never seen this pie served up in the fine restaurants of Paris.
No less an authority on things Pennsylvania Dutch than John Joseph Stoudt states clearly that shoofly pies "are soundly Pennsylvanian, made in the earlier days with sorghum, later with molasses, and with brown rather than granulated sugar." Phyllis Pellman Good, in her book Amish Cooking, feels that these pies may have been common because "this hybrid cake within a pie shell" faired better in the old style bake ovens after the bread had been baked. With modern kitchen stoves, temperatures could be controlled and the more standard, lighter pies developed.
RECIPE:
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup shortening, chilled and diced
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup boiling water
2/3 cup light corn syrup
1/3 cup dark molasses
1 pie crust (9" size), unbaked
PREPARATION:
Preheat oven to 375º.
In a bowl, combine flour, brown sugar and shortening. With fingertips or pastry blender, rub or combine these ingredients together until the shortening resembles small beans. Set aside.
In another bowl, dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water. Add the corn syrup and molasses. Stir to blend. Pour filling into the shell and sprinkle the crumb mixture over the top.
Bake in the middle of the oven for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350º and bake for 25 minutes more. The filling should be set, but still quiver when the pan is tapped. Do not overbake.