Apple, pumpkin, pecan and candy potato pie have turn out to be staple desserts on Thanksgiving tables throughout the U.S. However there are seemingly countless native and regional pies loved by People on Turkey Day and even yr spherical.
One of many extra curiously named examples is “shoofly pie.” Though it’s not historically served at holidays, Google information revealed that shoofly was the truth is the most uniquely searched pie in Pennsylvania round Thanksgiving final yr.
You won’t have heard of this confection in the event you didn’t develop up round southeastern Pennsylvania, however that doesn’t imply you may’t recognize the sugary deal with. Beneath, consultants break down what goes into making a scrumptious shoofly pie and the way its identify took place.
What’s shoofly pie?
“Shoofly pie is a molasses crumb cake baked in a pie crust,” William Woys Weaver, an knowledgeable in Pennsylvania Dutch delicacies and tradition and writer of “As American as Shoofly Pie,” advised HuffPost. “It consists of molasses mixed with baking soda on the bottom. Crumbs made from butter and flour, a little brown sugar, and your spices of choice ― usually nutmeg ― are sprinkled over this. This is then baked in a hot oven for perhaps 15 minutes, then the heat is reduced. The molasses mixture foams up and forms a cake.”
The result’s a wealthy pie-cake hybrid that’s gooey within the heart however simple sufficient to eat together with your fingers or a fork because of its flaky crust exterior.
“Shoofly pie is a classic Pennsylvania Dutch pastry,” mentioned Mark Louden, a professor of Germanic linguistics and director of the Max Kade Institute for German-American Research on the College of Wisconsin–Madison. It’s an “apt symbol of traditional Pennsylvania Dutch culture as it incorporates elements from Old World Europe but is a fundamentally New World phenomenon.”
To at the present time, the regional speciality is usually related to the Moravian, Mennonite and Amish communities of Lancaster County.
“Shoofly pie is a coffee cake normally consumed at breakfast or as a snack during breaks,” Weaver defined. “The Pennsylvania Dutch baked the cake in a crust ― their innovation ― so that it could be eaten out of hand as one dipped it into coffee. Some people broke up the pie into their coffee and called it ‘coffee soup.’ That mushy mixture may be an acquired taste.”
You can also make a shoofly pie with a “wet bottom” or “dry bottom.” Within the moist model, the molasses filling soaks into the pie crust, leading to extra of a moist backside layer and a consistency that you simply may examine to a sticky toffee pudding or custard.
The dry backside model is baked to extra of a cake-like consistency with a denser filling which may separate extra simply from the crust (and dip extra properly into espresso). To attain this texture, you may combine the molasses filling with a few of the crumb topping earlier than pouring it into the pie crust after which sprinkle on the remainder of the crumbs.
You possibly can select to include spices into your shoofly pie or not, however the molasses, brown sugar, flour, butter and baking soda are staples. Trendy variations may embrace eggs or an additional topping of chocolate icing.
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What’s the origin of this pie ― and its identify?
“The precise origins of shoofly pie are obscure, but it has elements of traditional German streusel-topped cakes that were eaten for breakfast and not as a dessert,” Louden mentioned. “It was originally made during the winter months, when molasses could be stored at cool temperatures without fermenting.”
In his analysis on Pennsylvania Dutch delicacies, Weaver has traced shoofly pie’s growth again to the interval simply after the Civil Struggle. He notes that the dish was initially described as “centennial cake.”
“It first appeared at the U.S. Centennial in 1876 at the Centennial Restaurant, which was the German restaurant on the fairgrounds” in Philadelphia, Weaver advised HuffPost. “Centennial cake was essentially shoofly pie baked as a cake ― no crust.”
The addition of the pie crust got here not lengthy after, as did the identify “shoofly pie,” which historians imagine originated within the Eighteen Eighties.
“The name likely derives from Shoo-fly Molasses, which was produced in Philadelphia and named for Shoofly the Boxing Mule, a circus animal popular in 19th century Pennsylvania,” Louden mentioned.
Weaver included a picture of this legendary creature in his boxing mode circa 1880 in his guide “Dutch Treats: Heirloom Recipes From Farmhouse Kitchens.”
“Shoofly the Boxing Mule was a feature in a local circus and became something of a folk legend in the Dutch Country,” he mentioned. “I do not know who owned Shoofly or what happened to him, but I am sure those answers are buried somewhere in local newspapers of the period.”
The mule’s identify may need been impressed by a track that dates again to the mid-Nineteenth century, “Shoo Fly, Don’t Bother Me.” The time period “shoo-fly pie” itself went on to function prominently in Dinah Shore’s hit Nineteen Forties track “Shoo-Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy.”
“The Pennsylvania Dutch name for shoofly pie is melassich riwwelkuche, which translates directly as ‘molasses crumb cake,’” Louden famous.
One other common idea surrounding the origin of the identify includes the truth that a lot of Pennsylvania Dutch baking at the moment befell outdoor. In consequence, so the legend goes, the candy molasses-filled pie attracted flies, and bakers would want to shoo them away in the course of the cooling course of.
The place are you able to get shoofly pie at present?
“Shoofly pie is widespread in the traditional Dutch Country of southeastern Pennsylvania and consumed by residents and visitors alike,” Louden mentioned. “Pennsylvanians are most likely to still eat it mostly for breakfast, often with coffee, but it is now popular as a dessert, too.”
Many households within the area have shoofly pie recipes which have been handed down for generations.
“It was then and still is today a basic coffee cake throughout the Dutch Country and is available for sale in most farmers markets and even in some local food stores,” Weaver mentioned.
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Yow will discover shoofly pie at bakeries in Lancaster County and different areas with a powerful Pennsylvania Dutch presence. Non-locals also can order one for supply because of companies like Goldbelly.
“It is not a special occasion dessert, so I doubt many people serve it at Thanksgiving, although there may be exceptions since it is a matter of personal taste,” Weaver mentioned, including that one explicit Pennsylvania Dutch section — the Amish — usually tend to view pizza as a particular deal with.
Nonetheless, there’s no purpose to imagine shoofly pie couldn’t sooner or later have an even bigger presence on Thanksgiving tables throughout the U.S. because of its sugary style and symbolic mixing of Previous World and New World delicacies.
As Louden famous, “All major expressions of Pennsylvania Dutch life, including the language, traditional values, material products and foodways, are hybrid and thus quintessentially American.”
