Shoo-Fly Pie
by Helen Rose Pauls
When the early Mennonite settlers came to North America by boat, they
brought along staples that were non-perishable such as flour, brown sugar,
molasses, salt, shortening and spices.
Waiting for the first harvest in the new land, settlers wives had to
feed large families from the limited selection in their pantries. By filling
a pie crust with a crumb and liquid mixture, they created a three-layered
pie. It had a gooey bottom, a cake-like middle and a crumb topping. Baked
and left to cool on the window sill or outdoors, these sweet pies sometimes
attracted flies and the exclamation, “Shoo Fly!’ became quite common. The
name stuck and this pie is to the Swiss or Pennsylvania Dutch Mennonites
what “Platz” is to the Russian Mennonites.
Jean Friesen, wife of our archivist Hugo Friesen, has a Pennsylvania
Dutch heritage and she baked two such pies from different recipes at our
first planning meeting for the annual banquet.
Her recipes are included below. We each tasted both, and I voted for
the second, but “Wet Bottom Shoo-Fly Pie” won out.
Jean said that sometimes wives baked twenty-one pies on Saturday, one
for each meal in the next week. “Shoo Fly” pie was a breakfast favorite.
Pie safes on the porch helped keep the pies fresh and the flies away.
Wet Bottom Shoo-Fly Pie
Mix: 1 egg, beaten
2/3 cup corn syrup
¾ cup boiling water with 1 tsp baking powder
Mix into crumbs:
7/8 cup flour
2/3 cup light brown sugar
2 Tbsp. shortening
Set aside one cup of crumb mixture. Stir remaining crumbs into liquid
mixture. Do not beat. Pour into an unbaked 9"pastry shell. Sprinkle reserved
crumbs over top. Bake at 375° for 10 min.; lower heat to 350° and
bake for an additional 30 min.
Shoo Fly Pie
Top: mix into crumbs:
1 1/8 cups flour
¾ cup brown sugar
¼ cup Crisco
¼ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking powder
Bottom:
¼ tsp. baking soda
¾ cup boiling water
¾ cup molasses or corn syrup.
Mix baking soda with boiling water, add molasses. Do not stir.
Pour into an unbaked 9"pie shell. Mix flour, sugar etc. into crumbs.
Spoon the dry mixture into the juice. Bake at 425° for 5 minutes and
375° for 30 minutes.