SHOOFLY PIE

Shoofly pie is a legacy of Amish cooks for whom electric-powered refrigerators are anathema. There are several explanations for the name of shoofly pie, the most unlikely being that its crumbly top vaguely resembles the texture of a cauliflower and shoofly is a corruption of the French word choufleur, meaning “cauliflower.” More logically, consider that once it is baked, a shoofly pie should be set out to cool. Loaded with molasses and brown sugar, it is fly bait supreme. Somebody needs to shoo them away.

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Coffee never had such a righteous companion as a wedge of shoofly pie.

There are two basic forms: wet-bottom shoofly pie, which is a huge-flavored, ooey-gooey confection as sweet as any pecan pie, and dry-bottom shoofly pie, which is more like a coffee cake, made from the same ingredients, but in proportions that are less sticky and more crumbly.