Sour Cream and Raisin Pie

There’s a baking contest at the Iowa State Fair devoted entirely to sour cream raisin pie. Likely brought over from Germany by Mennonite communities, raisin pie soon garnered popularity across the American Midwest. I believe that this pie’s story must be tied to the funeral pie, also known as raisin pie (or rosine pie, using the German word for raisin). Funeral pie was traditionally served with a meal prepared for the family or friends following a funeral. Before the invention of refrigeration, fresh fruits were not always readily available, but most homes had raisins on hand. Unlike many other dishes, raisin pie could be made a day or two ahead of the funeral supper and stored safely without refrigeration.

The original raisin pie was a double-crust pie. My guess is that Iowa’s sour cream raisin pie was an evolution of that. The main differences between the two are that the latter includes sour cream and eggs and is baked before it’s chilled.

This recipe was excerpted from ‘50 Pies, 50 States' by Stacey Mei Yan Fong. Buy the full book on Amazon. Get more pie recipes here →