The Retro Amish Pie That Deserves A Revival

The Amish are known for preparing homemade meals from scratch and being hugely inventive with their roster of available ingredients. This has given rise to some weird and wonderful old school recipes, such as yum yum salad (a combo of canned fruits and cool whip) and scrapple (a breakfast loaf made with cornmeal and scraps of pork), that don't always cater to every taste. However, there's one retro Amish dish that deserves a revival: the vanilla crumb pie. This sweet dish is prepared with scant pantry staples but manages to create three distinctive layers of texture boasting a delicious caramel-like flavor that's universally appealing.

Also known simply as vanilla pie, vanilla crumb pie begins with a basic pastry shell. This forms the foundational layer for the filling, which is made with eggs, brown sugar, corn syrup, vanilla extract, and water. This mixture is brought up to boil with a measure of flour, which acts as a thickening agent and lends the finished pie its slice-able structure. Finally, the vanilla-scented filling is topped with a crumble-like layer made of more brown sugar, flour, butter, and a raising agent, and baked until golden and crisp on the top. The pastry provides scaffolding for the dense and gooey filling while the crumble provides crunch and texture.

As expected, Amish vanilla pie has a floral vanilla fragrance, which works well with the corn syrup and brown sugar filling. Meanwhile, another Amish classic, known as shoofly pie uses similar ingredients but includes the richer addition of molasses, which gives it a darker color and stronger flavor. It can also be either gooey like vanilla pie, or dry-bottomed and more cakey in texture. Both pies featured three layers, were finished with a crumb topping, and used pantry staples that stayed stable during the colder months when fruit and other fresh ingredients weren't available for dessert making. 

While the exact origins of these dishes aren't confirmed, they were likely created out of desperation when food was scarce and money was tight. As they used economical ingredients that were on hand all year round, it was always possible to make a resourceful sweet treat that was cheering and filling. Vanilla pie is worth making as is, however, you can switch up the classic recipe by adding pecan nuts to the topping to lend it a streusel-like vibe, or serve it with a cold scoop of vanilla ice cream for an even richer finish.

Meanwhile water pie is another other dessert that rose from necessity that was far simpler. Created during the Depression era, it featured a gelatinous filling made of flour, sugar, and water but was served without a crumble topping and had only two layers.