If you like molasses....

. . .then you'll love Maida's Shoofly Pie. Actually, you have to LOVE molasses. I think you have to be one of those people who put molasses in your coffee instead of sugar to enjoy this pie.

The one or two followers who actually read this blog will know that there has been a trend: If Maria really doesn't like something, then it is sure that my family will. So we were kind of excited about Shoofly Pie, because Maria really didn't like it. Everytime I looked at the recipe, however, I put it off, because I couldn't imagine what there was to LIKE about this pie, other than maybe the crust. It is 1 cup of molasses and 2/3 cup of brown sugar, mixed with very little else. Sucrose Pie should be the name of it.

On my busy weekend of softball games and harmonica lessons and beautiful San Diego weather to get out and enjoy, I threw together the Shoofly Pie. It is easy to make. The crust took about 5 minutes to mix together and throw into the fridge for chilling, and another 5 minutes to roll out. It did roll out beautifully -- with no cracks or problems. This should have been an indicator to me about how bad it would be. The best pie crusts (i.e the ones that flake like crazy when you bite into the pie) are the ones that are all cracked and falling apart when you try to get them into the pie dish. And the filling was simple as . . . well . . . pie, to throw together. Maybe the phrase "simple as pie" came about from people who made Shoofly Pie -- because I can't really think of any other pie that is so simple to make. Maybe pumpkin pie.

But pumpkin pie tastes good. Shoofly Pie does not. Unless, as I stated above, you LOVE molasses. I like molasses -- I love its taste in gingerbread. But I don't LOVE molasses enough to enjoy this pie. It was so strong that it was actually spicy. It is unbelievably sweet. I could feel my glucose level spiking to unnatural levels while I was eating the pie. This is not a pie for a diabetic.

I was thinking, while I was eating this pie, about Laura Ingalls Wilder. My favorite parts of the Little House books were the parts where she talked about food. I remember all of the food things they ate. And one of the things that they lived for was sugar. They would make a trip into town to buy a small packet of white sugar, which sounded like gold back then. And for Christmas, they would get a small piece of maple sugar, which they savored like there was no tomorrow. That family would have died and gone to heaven if they had this pie.

Not so my family. Maddy really enjoys molasses -- she will eat it with a spoon. So she did enjoy this pie -- or I should say she enjoyed one tiny piece of the pie. I had a really tiny sliver of the pie, and finished Cassandra's tiny sliver. Nobody else even tried it. It is still sitting on the counter, with about 1/12 of it gone. I think it is destined for the trash unless Maddy decides to take it to school tomorrow and try to sell it to her hypoglycemic friends.

So, Maria, I agree with the title of your post: "Shoofly Pie -- Why?"