Recipes

Ground-Cherry Pie

Ground-Cherry Pie

Ground-cherries grow wild in the Pennsylvania countryside. Stewards of the earth’s bounty, the Amish picked them for food, discovering them to be a tasty filling for pies.
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Ingredients

Instructions

  • Cook cherries in 1½ cups water until mixture comes to a boil.
  • Meanwhile, mix together cornstarch, sugar, salt, and one cup water until smooth.
  • Stir into boiling cherries until fruit thickens.
  • Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice.
  • Soak gelatin in ⅓ cup water.
  • Add to fruit mixture, stirring well.
  • Spoon into unbaked pie shell and add top crust.
  • Bake at 400° for 15 minutes; reduce heat to 375° and bake 30 minutes longer.

Notes & Wine Advice

Makes 1 9” pie
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Course; Fruit / Pie
Cuisine; Amish

Pear Pie

Pear Pie

Many farmsteads had a wild seckel pear tree growing somewhere on the acreage. It was the domesticated pear trees in the family orchard or on local fruit farms, however, that provided the fruit for the seasonal pear pies. Canned pears could also be used to bring occasional variety to the family’s pie diet.
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Ingredients

Instructions

  • Sift together flour and sugar.
  • Stir in cream and lemon juice.
  • Mix until smooth.
  • Add pears.
  • Pour into an unbaked pie shell.
  • Sprinkle top with sugar and cinnamon.
  • Bake at 400° for 45–50 minutes.
  • Cool until set

Notes & Wine Advice

Makes 1 9” pie
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Course; Fruit / Pie
Cuisine; Amish

Peach Pie

Peach Pie

From mid-July through the end of August, peaches are in full supply in eastern Pennsylvania. Family orchards produce some; fruit farms raise them in abundance. The Amish woman cans dozens of jars of peaches, but saves many for eating fresh—simply cut in slices or over shortcake or in pies.
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Ingredients

Crumbs

Instructions

  • Mix together gently peaches, sugar, salt, and tapioca.
  • Let blend for 5 minutes before spooning into pie shell.
  • Top with crumbs.
  • Bake at 425° for 45–50 minutes.

Crumbs

  • Mix together until crumbly and sift over pie.

Notes & Wine Advice

Makes 1 9” pie
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Course; Fruit / Pie
Cuisine; Amish

Custard Pie

Custard Pie

Most Amish families’ egg supplies have come from their own flocks of chickens. When there were plenty of eggs, the cook had a repertoire of dishes to make so that no eggs went to waste (fried or scrambled for breakfast or lunch, in sandwiches or on top of stewed crackers, mixed into noodles or angel food cake, and more). Custard pies were a welcome variation to the usual weekly fare.
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Ingredients

Instructions

  • Combine sugar, flour, salt, and eggs and mix until smooth.
  • Heat milk to boiling point.
  • Add 1 cup hot milk to egg mixture.
  • Pour that into the remaining hot milk.
  • Pour into unbaked pie shell.
  • Sprinkle nutmeg over top.
  • Bake at 350° for 40–45 minutes.

Notes & Wine Advice

Makes 1 9” pie
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Course; Pie
Cuisine; Amish

Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin Pie

Gooseneck pumpkins grow in southeastern Pennsylvania. With some experimentation, and likely through association with their English neighbors, the German settlers discovered the pleasure of pumpkin, in combination with molasses, eggs, spices, and cream. It became a regularly prepared pie in Amish homes, with little or no connection to Thanksgiving or Christmas.
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Ingredients

Instructions

  • Combine all ingredients.
  • Pour into unbaked pie shell.
  • Sprinkle additional cinnamon and nutmeg over top of pie.
  • Bake at 450° for 15 minutes; then at 350° for 45 minutes.

Notes & Wine Advice

Makes 1 9” pie
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Course; Pie
Cuisine; Amish

Vanilla Pie

Vanilla Pie

Vanilla pie is a close cousin to shoofly pie, distinct from it mostly by the presence of vanilla in the syrupy bottom part.
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Ingredients

Instructions

  • Combine all the above ingredients, except the vanilla, in a saucepan.
  • Bring to a boil and continue boiling until thickened.
  • Allow to cool and stir in vanilla.
  • Pour into unbaked shell.
  • Crumbs
  • Melt shortening.
  • Stir in dry ingredients.
  • Crumble over syrup.
  • Bake at 375° for 50–60 minutes.

Notes & Wine Advice

Makes 1 9” pie
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Course; Pie
Cuisine; Amish

Montgomery Pie

Montgomery Pie

Pies with cakey tops and a variety of syrupy flavored bottoms are remembered especially by the older members of the Amish community. This cake in a pie shell is related to the more common shoofly pie, although its lemon-flavored bottom is reminiscent of lemon sponge pie.
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Ingredients

Bottom

  • juice and grated rind of one lemon
  • 1 cup molasses
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 Tbsp. flour
  • 1 egg
  • 3 unbaked 9” pie shells
  • Blend first six ingredients until smooth. Pour into 3 pie shells.

Top

Instructions

  • Cream butter and sugar.
  • Add eggs and beat thoroughly.
  • Combine flour and baking powder.
  • Add milk alternately with dry ingredients.
  • Divide batter and pour over the syrup in the pie shells.
  • Bake at 450° for 15 minutes; reduce heat to 350° and continue baking another 45 minutes.

Notes & Wine Advice

Makes 3 9” pies
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Course; Pie
Cuisine; Amish

Shoofly Pie from Phillis Pellman Good

Shoofly Pie from Phillis Pellman Good

This cakey pie, with a name that has produced a myriad of reasons for its existence, may have its roots in the early bakeovens of Pennsylvania. Dense cakes with heavy dough were put into the bakeovens following the weekly bread-baking, which required the hottest fires. This hybrid cake within a pie shell weathered the bakeoven well. It was with the advent of the kitchen range and its more easily controlled temperatures that lighter pies with custards, creams, and more delicate fruit became common.
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Ingredients

Crumbs

Bottom Part

Instructions

  • To larger portion of crumb mixture add egg and molasses.
  • Blend in ¾ cup boiling water.
  • Dissolve soda in remaining ¼ cup water and add last.
  • Pour into unbaked pie shell.
  • Sprinkle reserved crumbs on top.
  • Bake at 425° for 15 minutes.
  • Reduce heat to 350° and bake 40–45 minutes longer.

Notes & Wine Advice

Makes 1 9” pie
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Course; Pie
Cuisine; Amish

Lemon Sponge Pie

Lemon Sponge Pie

Lemon pies were a treat. Citrus fruit does not grow in eastern Pennsylvania. But the area’s proximity to the canals, that webbed their way as far west as Ohio and provided waterways to the Atlantic coastal cities, made it possible to get lemons and oranges. Some farmers sold their hay in Philadelphia and could bring home the treats available there. In many homes, lemon pies were made primarily when company was coming.
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Ingredients

Instructions

  • Cream sugar and butter.
  • Add egg yolks and beat well.
  • Add flour, salt, lemon juice, and rind.
  • Add water or milk.
  • Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites.
  • Pour into unbaked pie shell.
  • Bake at 325° for 45–50 minutes.

Notes & Wine Advice

Makes 1 9” pie
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Course; Pie
Cuisine; Amish

Lemon Meringue Pie

Lemon Meringue Pie

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Ingredients

juice and grated rind of one lemon

Meringue

Instructions

Pie

  • Add cornstarch and sugar to lemon juice and rind.
  • Stir until smooth.
  • Blend in egg yolks and then the boiling water.
  • Cook mixture in double boiler, stirring constantly until thickened.
  • Cool, then pour into baked pie shell.
  • Top with meringue.
  • Bake at 350° until lightly golden (watch carefully!).

Meringue

  • 3 egg whites
  • 4 Tbsp.
  • sugar
  • Beat whites stiffly.
  • Fold in sugar, one tablespoon at a time.
  • Pile onto lemon pie.

Notes & Wine Advice

Makes 1 9” pie
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Course; Fruit / Pie
Cuisine; Amish