Pie

This was inspired by a favorite ice cream, rum raisin. For the deepest flavor, use a dark rum, such as Myer’s; light rum just won’t taste the same.

To use fresh pumpkin, halve and place a 1 3/4-pound sugar pumpkin, cut sides down, in a baking pan. Roast in a 400°F oven until very soft, fifty to sixty minutes. Scoop out flesh and purée in a food processor until very smooth.

If you don’t have a cake ring, you can use a nine-inch springform pan instead; make sure the dough comes up 1 1/2 inches from the bottom of the pan.

Maple syrup holds a special place in the hearts of Southerners. In the village of Monterey, Virginia—known as “Little Switzerland”—the annual Maple Syrup Festival draws thousands of visitors. When gathering ingredients for this pie, it’s important to note that many maple-flavored syrups are just corn syrup with maple flavoring (a shocking revelation for me!). Read the label to make certain you’re getting 100 percent pure maple syrup. Grade B maple syrup is great for cooking; it has a deeper flavor and color than the Grade A amber syrup, although Grade A will work, too. Of course, maple syrup from Monterey will add a wonderful authentic note to this pie for people with a serious sweet tooth.

Amish and old-order Mennonites bake this pie, also called rosina pie (German for raisin) or “funeral” pie, during any season. Some recipes include milk, making it more like a custard pie, and others use water, but they all seem to agree on the necessity of a double-crusted pie, often with a lattice top. If you like raisins, you’ll love this pie. Walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, or almonds would be perfect choices for the chopped nuts.

You know a pie recipe is old when several stories are told about its history. Some say the term chess pie goes back to an eighteenth-century English cheese pie. Another links the origins of the name to the Southern pie chest, or pie safe, a piece of furniture that holds kitchen confections. Another anecdote tells of a man who stopped to eat at a diner in Alabama. He loved the pie he was served, and when he asked what its name was, the waitress replied, “jes pie.” Whatever the truth may be, as food writer Stephanie Anderson Witmer says, “So many Southern pies, like the chess pies, are elegant in their simplicity. They use staple ingredients, but are divine.”

Two sweet Southern favorites—pecans and fudge—come together in this extra-rich pie that bakes up like a big, soft brownie. Serve small slices topped with a dollop of unsweetened whipped cream, crème fraîche, or sour cream.

Aaron DiGrassie (Mrs. Rowe’s grandson) picked up this fabulous, off beat recipe when he worked at Ford’s Colony in Williamsburg, Virginia. Now a new father and the restaurant’s general manager, Aaron has come a long way since the day when he first started working in his grandmother’s restaurant business. At the age of ten, the ambitious boy made and sold pie boxes for 10 cents each.

Mrs. Rowe’s family is still finding recipe treasures scattered throughout her boxes and notes. Aaron found this recipe on an index card buried in a box in the attic. It’s a sweet pie that tastes a lot like cookie dough.

In her book The Best of Amish Cooking, Phyllis Pellman Good writes that shoofly pies may have been common in the past because “this hybrid cake within a pie shell” fared better than more delicate pies in the old-style bake ovens. With the advent of modern ovens, temperatures could be controlled, allowing for the development of the lighter pies that are standard today. Shoofly pies keep nicely in a pie cupboard. They also freeze well. This recipe uses 1/2 cup each of molasses and corn syrup for a sweeter flavor; you can simply use just a full cup of molasses, leaving out the corn syrup, for a stronger flavor if you like. This version also makes for a pie with a very wet bottom—the bottom of the crust disappears into the filling. If you’d like it drier, cut the water in the filling back to 3/4 cup.

This pie offers a classic smooth texture and can feature any flavor you like. Here are a few suggestions: Try orange gelatin with pineapple juice, grape gelatin with grape juice, or raspberry gelatin with raspberry juice. It’s a perfect light summer dessert, especially with complementary fresh fruit on the side.

This recipe was in Mrs. Rowe’s self-published cookbook, Mrs. Rowe’s Favorite Recipes, which is no longer in print. A note at the bottom of the page gives low-fat options, like using low-fat cream cheese and margarine. Give it a whirl if you like, but you’d be missing out on the true-blue flavor of this pie. The coconut and pecans will need close attention while toasting; don’t let their heavenly smell distract you. In fact, they continue to cook for a minute or so after being removed from the heat, so stop cooking them just before they look the way you want them to—golden brown and crunchy. Try the Chocolate Cookie Crust (page 21) for contrast, or the Gingersnap Crust (page 22) to cut the sweetness.

This pie is as sweet and sticky as a pecan pie. Serve it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or cut the sweetness with a dollop of sour cream or unsweetened whipped cream.

This recipe appeared in the restaurant’s self-published cookbook, which notes that you should “serve only to those who truly appreciate dessert and won’t complain about calories.” This pie reminds me of a quote from Chocolat, the movie based on the book by Joanne Harris: “It melts ever so slightly on your tongue and tortures you with pleasure.”

According to Retro Desserts, by Wayne Brachman, this recipe dates back to the 1950s and was developed by a company that makes crème de menthe. Other recipes use a filling more like a Key lime pie, but made with mint. This version is mildly minty and has a texture like frozen cream. It’s a pretty, delicate shade of green even without the food coloring.

The icy strawberry filling in this pie is pleasantly complemented by the luscious whipped cream. The pie tastes just like a margarita—the tequila flavor adds quite a zing. The recipe calls for freezing the whipped cream on top of the pie, but you can also freeze just the strawberry part and add the whipped cream when you serve the pie.

Mudd Pie is a rich treat that’s fun to make; you simply can’t go wrong with it! It’s a fun kitchen activity for children, too, and they love to eat the results.

Stephen Harriman, a writer for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, says, “For some reason, I was expecting the peanut pie to be a pecan pie look-alike. Instead it looked more like a lemon meringue or banana cream pie. If you like peanuts smooth, you’ll love this.”

Fresh watermelon is a summertime treat throughout the South, where the melons can be seen sprawled in many backyard gardens. These days, watermelon can be bought almost any time of year at most grocery stores. This pretty pink pie makes a spectacular offering at a special brunch.

Smooth, firm, and creamy, this pie is naturally a lovely shade of pink, so you need not add the food coloring unless you want a deeper color. After 6 hours in the freezer, it’s slice-able but still soft. Left overnight, it’s firm but still creamy—a little piece of strawberry heaven.