If Harry Potter Had Celiac This Could Be His Favorite Pie

My roommate has been talking about the Shoofly Pie recipe in The Pie and Pastry Bible since March. She was on the Mediclear cleanse at the time, and she kept saying that when she was finished, she wanted to celebrate by making this pie.

She hadn't even heard of Shoofly Pie before, but discovered it in the the P+P Bible when we were planning our other roommate's GF tiramisu. The Shoofly Pie recipe is right next to the Black Bottomed Tiramisu Tart.

Of course, I was going to take the helm of this GF Shoofly Pie craze sweeping the apartment. But you all know how I feel about pie.

If you don't know how I feel about pie, I can sum it up thusly: in the amount of time it takes to get the pie dough resting in the pie pan (resting! not baked!), I can have a two layer cake baked and cooling on the table.

I'm just sayin'.

this pie doesn't say "ya'll come in," it says "feestelijk inhalen alleman"

According to RLB, Shoofly Pie comes from Pennsylvania Dutch Country, which makes everyone I tell that to tell me that they thought it came from the South. Apparently, food historian Will Weaver discovered that it was one of the pie recipes handed out during the US Centennial in Philadelphia in 1876. So everyone, please take note: Shoofly Pie is NOT from the South.

Shoofly Pie is basically a molasses/gingerbready filling baked inside a pie crust. My ex-roomie's boyfriend likened the pie to Treacle Tart, which is Harry Potter's favorite dessert and so I am totally okay with that.

the gooey, THE GOOEY

June 10, 2007
Name of Pie: Gluten Free Shoofly Pie, aka GF Treacle Tart
Occasion: My Roommate Is Parasite Free!
Constituents: GF Shoofly Pie, recipe based on RLB's Shoofly Pie

I hemmed and hawed about making this pie because I am having trouble in the GF baking world. My birthday GF tiramisu came out a bit grainy which is completely unacceptable. The only thing I can think of, is that some percentage of cornstarch is a good thing in the GF baking experience, as that ingredient was in every GF thing I've baked except my birthday tiramisu.

So this time, I decided to use the GF Mix and add some amount of cornstarch. How much? I didn't know. This was the problem.

I finally bucked up and started in on the pie crust. I made the Flaky Cream Cheese Pie Crust, but with 124 grams of GF Flour Mix and 20 grams of cornstarch...just 'cause. I realised that all these instructions for resting up the dough are to make sure the gluten doesn't overdevelop; I don't have a gluten problem here, people, so WTF! I'm not resting the dough!

Well, I did refrigerate the dough once or twice, just to make sure the butter didn't get too soft.

check out my butter flakes!

Anyhoo, the freaking pastry dough finally came together and I got it in the pie plate, crimped the edges, and shoved it in the refrigerator.

see, crimped pie crust

Then, I turned my attention to the filling.

A Shoofly Pie is made up of two different parts: a gooey molasses-coffee part and a crumbly flour-butter part.

Of course, I got all flustered about the crumbly flour-butter part. What was I going to do about the flour? The recipe called for all-purpose flour, which has more protein than cake flour. After too much deliberation, I remembered my sweet sorghum flour, which has more protein than any of the other GF flours I currently have in my pantry. After some brilliant math skills, I decided to use 70 grams sorghum flour, 40 grams potato starch, 35 grams tapioca flour, and 15 grams cornstarch...just 'cause.

I then realised that I was supposed to have chilled 115 grams of butter...so I measured it out and shoved it in the refrigerator.

the flour-butter-spice crumble

Next I had to cut the chilled butter into the flour/golden sugar/spice/etc mix, which took FOREVER, and then, THEN, I was SO ready to put the pie together and bake it up!

the molasses-coffee-baking powder

So, I added the baking powder to the warm coffee, which was neat because the whole thing got all fizzy and active, and then I stirred in the molasses and poured that whole thing into the pie plate. Then I sprinkled the flour crumble mix evenly over the top and baked that sucker for 45 minutes.

step 1: pour into unbaked pie shell

step 2: splash some of the molasses stuff on yourself, and find some later in your "cleav" as Joelf likes to call it

step 3: sprinkle the flour mix evenly over the top

step 4: bake for 45 minutes, and yum

Then, we ate it with some coffee ice cream and it was good. The deep and hearty flavors of molasses and coffee were very warming. This would be a good winter pie.

serving suggestion: DO IT

I couldn't sleep at all that night, because of all the caffeine in the pie and ice cream. I guess that's why RLB says traditionally this pie is served warm for breakfast.

The GF pie crust was very thin, crisp, and brittle. I guess it was a little flaky, but I wasn't very impressed.

However, I had saved the last bits of the pie dough and rolled it up with some cinnamon and sugar and this morning I baked it in the toaster oven. This time the crust was buttery, and flaky, oh so flaky, and tender and crisp. I could not tell it was GF, and I could tell that it was freaking delicious. I don't know why it tasted better today than it did in the pie--maybe I'm rolling the dough too thin or something. But today--today that crust was the bomb.