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Old Fashioned Sugar Pie Recipe is a vintage but very popular pie with a gooey brown sugar filling and flaky crust. It’s a simple recipe, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, and milk, using pantry staples.
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OLD FASHIONED SUGAR PIE RECIPE
I had a reader ask about an Old Fashioned Sugar Pie Recipe after I posted this Buttermilk Pie. Since I began making the brown sugar pie, it has become one of our favorites.
A lot of people confuse a Chess Pie with Sugar Pie, but they are not the same. In fact, Chess Pie, Sugar Pie, and Butter Pie are all similar. As well, the lines are blurred even more with personal modifications and bloggers’ renaming or misnaming these recipes based on SEO target keywords.
A Sugar Pie has a single crust and is filled with a mixture of butter, brown sugar, flour, milk, eggs, and vanilla. When it bakes the filling turns into a caramel-like mixture (from the butter and brown sugar).
Sometimes the Old Fashioned Sugar Pie is referred to as ‘desperation pie’ because it could be made with ingredients that would always be on hand ‘on the farm’, butter, sugar, flour, and eggs. Similarly, the reason Buttermilk Pie, Vinegar Pie, and Chess Piebecame popular.
WHERE DID SUGAR PIE ORIGINATE?
This pie is originally from France. It came to Quebec, and subsequently the rest of Canada, during colonization. Sugar Pie varieties can also be found in other western European countries, as well as throughout the mid-west in the US.
IS TART AU SUCRE THE SAME AS SUGAR PIE?
Yes! Tarte au Sucre is a French term meaning “sugar pie.”
I found a simple version of the recipe in one of my Grandmother’s old recipe books. Basically, there were just measurements and no good instructions. After a couple of tries, it turned out great.
Turns out this recipe is crazy simple to make. I even modified it after initially posting this recipe to an even more simple method of mixing it. Most recipes that have been around for a long time are simple. But, they stand the test of time because they’re also goodand usually economical to make.
This Sugar Pie Recipe has a gooey, sugary consistency. It’s like flan or creme brulee without the caramelized sugar on top. You could totally top this pie with meringue if you’re not meringue-opposed like I am. Instead, I prefer to serve it with whipped cream or ice cream.
What you’ll need to make this recipe
Butter. Real butter, no substitution
All-purpose flour.
Milk.
Eggs.
Brownsugar.
Pure vanilla extract.
Pie crust. You can make pie crust. I love this Never Fail Pie Crust recipe as well as this Coconut Oil Pie Crust. Of course, you can also purchase a pie crust. This is a regular, not deep dish, pie crust. If you use a deep dish pie crust, you will need to double the filling ingredients as well as cook the pie longer. (I’m not sure about the time, you’ll need to watch and test it.)
Old Fashioned Sugar Pie Tips
As mentioned above, I changed the method for making this pie over time. I mix all the ingredients in a bowl, pour it into the prebaked pie crust, and put it in the oven. It’s so much easier than the way I originally published the recipe.
Likewise, be patient when baking the pie. It takes a long time to bake, especially when you’re dying to taste it. This pie will still be slightly jiggly in the center when it’s done. But the edges will be set and the top will be lightly browned. And, hey, if you take it out of the oven before it’s set, serve it over ice cream as a sauce and it’s still good. #becauseIknow
I updated this post from an earlier version dated October 15, 2017. I made new photos and simplified the recipe instructions.
These were the original photos for this sugar pie.
Butter, sugar, and brown sugar cook in a flaky crust to form a gooey pie. It'ss simple yet decadent.
Author: Paula
4.95 from 94 votes
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Prep Time: 15 minutesminutes
Cook Time: 55 minutesminutes
Total Time: 1 hourhour15 minutesminutes
Servings: 8slices
Ingredients
2tablespoonsbutter
3tablespoonsflour
½cupwhole milk
1 and ½ cupsbrown sugar
2largeeggs
½teaspoonvanilla extract
19-inchPie crustI used a store bought crust
Instructions
Preheat oven to 325°F. Place the pie crust on a cookie sheet (in case it boils over). Blind bake the crust for 10 minutes.
When you remove the crust from the oven after 10 minutes, turn the oven up to 350°F.
In a large bowl, whisk the melted butter, flour, milk, vanilla, and brown sugar.
Whisk the eggs separately, then stir them into the brown sugar mixture.
Pour the mixture into pre-baked pie crust.
Bake at 350°F for 50 to55 minutes. The pie will puff up with the edge appearing brown and 'firm'. The center will be a little jiggly.
Carefully remove the pie from the oven and allow it to cool before cutting.
Serve at room temperature with whipped cream or ice cream.
Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator. It's last 5 to 7 days in the fridge.
Notes
I retested this recipe and made changes to the above ingredient amounts that I believe work better. Below is simply the recipe as originally written.
Brown sugar is the simplest substitute for granulated sugar. You can use light or dark brown sugar as a 1:1 substitute. It makes for darker, denser baked goods with a more caramel or molasses flavor, which is wonderful for classic chocolate chip cookies, but less desirable for delicate cakes.
The famous dessert reportedly originated in the 1850s in resourceful Amish communities in Indiana. According to What's Cooking America, the pie consisted of only four simple ingredients: brown sugar, flour, heavy cream, and an 8-inch pie crust at 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Sugar cream pie (also known as sugar pie or Hoosier pie) is a custard pie made with a simple filling of butter, flour, cream and sugar sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.
Sugar pie is a dessert in northern French and Belgian cuisine, where it is called tarte au sucre. It is also popular in Canada. Various type of tarte au sucre are made.
Molasses is hygroscopic, meaning that it likes to hang on to moisture. As a result, baked goods made with brown sugar end up moister, heavier, and chewier, while those made with white sugar end up lighter and crisper (read up a bit more on the science in this article about the best chocolate chip cookies).
Brown sugar contains 380 calories per 100 grams (g), while white sugar contains 385 calories per 100 g. Brown sugar contains more calcium than white sugar, with 83 milligrams (mg) per 100 g compared to 1 mg per 100 g of white sugar. Equally, other minerals, such as iron, are slightly higher in brown sugar.
The Ancient Egyptians were the first to invent a dish close to what we know as a pie today. They had a honey filling covered in a crusty cake made from oats, wheat, rye or barley. A recipe for chicken pie was also discovered on a tablet carved prior to 2000 BC.
Some food writers and others have criticized naming foods including Crack Pie after addictive substances as insensitive and offensive. In May 2019, Devra First of the Boston Globe criticized the name in a column for making light of addiction by alluding to the addictiveness of crack cocaine.
Crack Pie is a butter pie with an oat crust. The change comes after continued controversy, with the name's reported allusion to the addictive nature of crack cocaine, which decimated mostly African-American communities in the 1980s and '90s.
What is the Difference Between a Sugar Cream Pie and Custard or Chess Pie? Chess pies and custard pies are mixed and poured right into the pie crust, and they contain eggs. A sugar cream pie is made without eggs, and the filling is usually prepared on the stovetop, reducing the overall baking time.
Mountain pies go by lots of other names – campfire pies, campfire sandwiches, hobo pies, pudgie pies, etc but whatever you call them, they're delicious!
Traditionally, the English Canadian tart consists of butter, sugar, and eggs in a pastry shell, similar to the French-Canadian sugar pie, or the base of the U.S. pecan pie without the nut topping. The butter tart is different from the sugar pie given the lack of flour in the filling.
Probably no other dessert conjures up nostalgia in a Hoosier like the rich, creamy dessert. It's believed the recipe was brought to eastern Indiana around 1810 by North Carolina Quakers, who settled in the Richmond, Winchester, New Castle and Portland areas. Sugar cream pie is the state's unofficial state pie.
*This pie has 390 calories and 15 grams of sugar per serving compared to the full-sugar version which has 440 calories and 40 grams of sugar per serving.
Brown sugar, meanwhile, is dense and compacts easily, creating fewer air pockets during creaming—that means that there's less opportunity to entrap gas, creating cookies that rise less and spread more. With less moisture escaping via steam, they also stay moist and chewy.
General recommended substitution ratios are as follows: For every cup of sugar, you can replace it with a 1/2 cup to 2/3 cup of honey or 2/3 cup agave. If using maple syrup or molasses, 3/4 cup to 1 cup will do the trick.
Ultimately, whether you use brown sugar in your coffee is a personal choice that depends on your individual preferences and health goals. If you enjoy the flavor of brown sugar and are mindful of how much you are consuming, there is no reason why you can't use it in your coffee.
Introduction: My name is Tyson Zemlak, I am a excited, light, sparkling, super, open, fair, magnificent person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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