Wet Shoe Fly Pie

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Contributor: Heidi Abbey Moyer

Crumbs: 
- 1 cup flour
- 2/3 cup light brown sugar
- 1 tbsp Crisco (vegetable shortening)
- Dash allspice
- 1 tsp. cinnamon

Liquid:
- 1 cup molasses, Turkey, King, Karo or Barrel; dissolve in 3/4 cup very hot water
- 1 tsp. soda added to hot water
- Add slowly 1 lightly beaten egg
- Tiny pinch salt
- Spices to taste, optional

Put half crumbs in unbaked pie crust; add liquid and cover with remaining crumbs. 
Bake at 400 degrees 35 minutes; turn to 350 degrees 25 more minutes. Deep pies bake slightly longer time.

Notes for a modern kitchen: 
To keep crust from getting soggy bake it a few minutes before filling to seal crust.
You're on your own for a crust here so we recommend a pre-made one, your family favorite, or a simple recipe for Pie Pastry.

Serve with:
Bring out that strong black coffee, which our Sister Library’s city, Melbourne, is known for.

Shoofly pie, sometimes spelled shoo-fly or shoe-fly pie is a true Pennsylvania pie that originates with the Pennsylvania Dutch in the 1870s. It was called the Centennial Cake to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, PA and the name shoofly evolved during the next decade. The Pennsylvania Dutch were actually Pennsylvania Germans whose descendants can still be found in PA, particularly in the Southeast and South Central regions and recipes for the pie are a staple of many Pennsylvania Dutch cookbooks. Shoofly pie would have been served for breakfast with strong black coffee. Today it can be purchased at many regional markets and has both a dry-bottom and wet-bottom version.

This recipe is for a wet shoe fly pie and comes to us from the Penn State Harrisburg Library Archives and Special Collections, home to the Three Mile Island Collection. This recipe appeared in a cookbook from that collection, called Recipes that Helped Us Survive Three Mile Island. Published by the Woman’s Club of Middletown, PA in the 1980s, these local recipes were gathered to document the food that helped Middletown residents survive the worst nuclear accident in U.S. History.