Sugar cream pie (also known as sugar pie or Hoosier pie) is a

custard pie A custard pie is any type of uncooked custard mixture added to an uncooked or partially cooked crust and baked together. In North America, custard pie commonly refers to a plain mixture of milk, eggs, sugar, salt, vanilla extract and sometim ...

made with a simple filling of butter, flour, cream and sugar sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. It is considered one of the desperation pies because the custard filling is made without eggs. The dessert may also be called finger pie in reference to the filling being stirred by the cook's finger before baking, as doing so avoids breaking the crust. It is similar to chess pie.

History

Sugar cream pie is the unofficial

state pie This is a list of official U.S. state foods: Notes See also * List of U.S. state beverages References External links The Food Timeline: State Foods and RecipesNetState: All states symbols {{USStateLists State Foods Foods Food is ...

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

, where it is believed to have originated with Quaker settlers who came from North Carolina in the early 19th century, and thereafter settled in east-central Indiana, particularly around the cities of New Castle, Portland, Richmond, and Winchester. The

Amish The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. They are closely related to Mennonite churc ...

also popularized sugar cream pie, making the pie easy to find where they populated. In particular, the pie is a favorite in the Pennsylvania Dutch areas, much as is

shoofly pie Shoofly pie is a type of American pie made with molasses associated with Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine. While shoo-fly pie has been a staple of Moravian, Mennonite and Amish foodways, there is scant evidence concerning its origins, and most of the ...

, a similar dessert. Shakers also have a variant of the pie. However, as the Shakers had to abandon their community of West Union (Busro) (near modern-day

Vincennes, Indiana Vincennes is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Indiana, United States. It is located on the lower Wabash River in the southwestern part of the state, nearly halfway between Evansville and Terre Haute. Founded in 1732 by French fur ...

) in 1827, their only presence in Indiana ever (1810–1827), it is unlikely that they made the dessert popular in the state.Stuttgen p. 277 The largest producer of these pies is Wick's Pies, whose plant is in

Winchester, Indiana Winchester is a city in White River Township, Randolph County, in the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 4,935 at the 2010 census. The city is the county seat of Randolph County. It is the home of Winchester Speedway. History Winchester ...

, and makes 750,000 sugar cream pies a year. They are recognizable for their

nutmeg Nutmeg is the seed or ground spice of several species of the genus ''Myristica''. ''Myristica fragrans'' (fragrant nutmeg or true nutmeg) is a dark-leaved evergreen tree cultivated for two spices derived from its fruit: nutmeg, from its seed, an ...

dusting and shallow depth in a disposable aluminum pan. The recipe Wick's uses came directly from a family recipe originating from the nineteenth century. The pies sell in 25 states.Stuttgen p. 254

References

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Notes

External links

Retro Recipe Challenge #9: Québec's traditional sugar pie recipe
{{American pies Symbols of Indiana Indiana culture Canadian desserts Sweet pies Cuisine of the Midwestern United States American pies