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Farm Kitchen:  early american 'fruit desserts'  |
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CabinCreek-Kentucky
True Blue Farmgirl
8529 Posts
Frannie
Green County
Kentucky
USA
8529 Posts |
 Posted - Oct 30 2006 : 1:46:47 PM
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hmmmm ... decided my 'american food history' should be here rather than in BOOKS .. but i am taking all this info from a book: Red-Flannel Hash and Shoo-Fly Pie by Lila Perl. copyright 1965 ... dooooo try to find it .. so interesting for every cook to own!
"Fruit desserts bearing odd names such as blueberry grunt, apple slump and blackberry flummery followed inthe tadtion of English steamed pudding, but were the true products of New Enland cookeery. Grunts and slumps, as well as cobblers and pandowdies, were all pretty much the same thing . dessert of sweetened cooked fruit (usually apples or berries) topped with a biscuit-like dough ... hmmmm .. sounds like MaryJane bake-overs!!! Go get you some of her bake-over products to try this with!!!!
The dessert was cooked by steaming in a heavy covered pot over the fire, or baked in the oven. It was always served warm with the cream pitcher close at hand. Pandowdy was made with apples and was sometimes baked like a deep-dish pie with a pastry crust on top. When the pandowdy was almost done, the pastry topping was chopped, or 'dowdied," right into the apples. Molasses was poured over the top and the pandowdy was baked a little longer, then served warm with cream. It was not beautiful to look at, but its delicious taste more than made up for its appearance.
A 'flummery' was just a little bit different. It was a dessert of fruit cooked with sugar and water, thickened slightly, and served warm with cream or soft custard. It had no cakelike topping and was supposed to be light and airy, as its name implied.
True Friends, Frannie
CABIN CREEK FARM
KENTUCKY
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Miss Bee Haven
True Blue Farmgirl
4331 Posts
Janice
Louisville/Irvington
Kentucky
USA
4331 Posts |
Posted - Oct 30 2006 : 1:53:43 PM
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One of my favorite pieces of piano sheet music has the title: "Shoo-fly Pie and Apple Pandowdy" and I've never known what either one of those things was! :) I just liked playing the music(it's a 'medium bounce') and I love that 1940's stuff. Thanks, Frannie for enlightening me! Wow! It sounds tasty!!!
"If you think you've got it nailed down, then what's all that around it?" - 'Brother Dave' Gardner |
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Miss Bee Haven
True Blue Farmgirl
4331 Posts
Janice
Louisville/Irvington
Kentucky
USA
4331 Posts |
Posted - Oct 30 2006 : 1:55:02 PM
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PS - So what's Shoo-Fly Pie, anyhow??? :)
"If you think you've got it nailed down, then what's all that around it?" - 'Brother Dave' Gardner |
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CabinCreek-Kentucky
True Blue Farmgirl
8529 Posts
Frannie
Green County
Kentucky
USA
8529 Posts |
Posted - Oct 30 2006 : 2:14:28 PM
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SHOO-FLY PIE ... FILLING DOES NOT REQUIRE EGGS, MILK, CHEESE OR FRUIT. ITS PRINCIPAL INGREDIENTS ARE MOLASSES AND FLOUR. THUS IT WAS A GREAT FAVORITE IN LATE WINTER WHEN FRESH FRUITS WERE NOT AVILABLE AND THE 'schnitz' AND OTHER DRIED FRUITS oF THE PREVIOUS SUMMER HAD BEEN USED UP.
To make shoo-fly pie, the molasses mixture and the flour, (or crumb), mixture are added to the pie shell in varying proportions to give the desired kind of pie.
A DRY shoo-fly pie has less molasses and is really more like a coffee cake baked in a pie shell. It is usually eaten at breakfast time, cut in large wedges and dunked in coffee. The main course at such a meal would probably be scrambled eggs, fried apples, and scrapple (which is called PONHAUS by the Pennsylvania Dutch).
The WET shoo-fly pie has lots of molasses in the filling and is most often eaten as dessert. It is delicious, although not very traditional, served with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. The patches of stick y molasses peeping through the crumb topping were always an attractive stopping place for the FLIES that hovered near the open windows of the farmhuse kitchen, hence the name SHOO-FLY.
so there you have it gurlfren!
True Friends, Frannie
CABIN CREEK FARM
KENTUCKY
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CabinCreek-Kentucky
True Blue Farmgirl
8529 Posts
Frannie
Green County
Kentucky
USA
8529 Posts |
Posted - Oct 30 2006 : 2:20:27 PM
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RECIPE: PENNSYLVNIA DUTCH SHOO-FLY PIE (one 8 or 9 inch pie)
1 - 8 or 9 inch unbaked pie shell. (use your favorite recipe)
CRUMB MIXTURE:
1-1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 cup butter (4 tablespoons)
Comibne the first five ingredients in a mixing bowl. Cut in the butter, using a pastry blender or crisscrossing with two knives, until the mixture is mealy in appearance.
MOLASSES MIXTURE:
1/2 TEASPOON BAKING SODA
3/4 CUP HOT WATER
3/4 CUP LIGHT, MILD-FLAVORED MOLASSES
Dissolve soda in hot ater. Add molasses. Spoon one third of the molasses mixture into the pie shell. Cover with one third of the crumb mixture. Repeat this process twice.
Bake the pie at 425 degrees for ten minutes, then 350 degrees 30 minutes longer. (Some of the molasses mixture may run over during baking. Put a large flat pan or a sheet of aluminum foil on the shelf below to catch any drippings.)
Serve slightly warm or cool, with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream if desired.
p.s. wrap up a portion and mail to frannie!!!
True Friends, Frannie
CABIN CREEK FARM
KENTUCKY
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Miss Bee Haven
True Blue Farmgirl
4331 Posts
Janice
Louisville/Irvington
Kentucky
USA
4331 Posts |
Posted - Oct 30 2006 : 2:28:14 PM
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Thanks again, Frannie! What a cool 'make-do' way to get some sweets in the menu when fruit is out of season. The sweetness of those two deserts makes me think of the voices of the two women who recorded my song - Dinah Shore(first-1946) and Ella Fitzgerald. They both had voices like warm honey on fresh baked buttery biscuits! Oops - now I'm hungry and I don't leave work until 6!
"If you think you've got it nailed down, then what's all that around it?" - 'Brother Dave' Gardner |
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Farm Kitchen: early american 'fruit desserts' |
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early american 'fruit desserts'
