Under Layer
1 cupful molasses Plain Crisco Pastry. 1 cupful brown sugar 1 lemon 1 pint hot water 1 egg 2 tablespoonfuls flour Line large pie plate with pastry.
For under layer. Mix sugar with flour, add molasses, egg well beaten, grated lemon rind, and hot water, and pour into prepared pie plate. For top layer. Cream Crisco and sugar together, add eggs well beaten, milk, salt, flour, and baking powder. Spread mixture over under layer and bake in hot oven thirty-five minutes.
Sufficient for two large pies.
A molasses custard under a cake-like top layer, in the shoofly family. The text as printed is incomplete, so read the whole thing before starting.
- The ingredient list is missing half the recipeOnly the under layer is itemized. The top layer calls for Crisco, sugar, eggs, milk, salt, flour and baking powder with no quantities given anywhere on the page. Treat it as a plain 1-egg butter-cake batter scaled to cover two pies, or borrow the proportions from a cake recipe you trust.
- Yield versus the pan instructionThe headnote says "sufficient for two large pies" but the method says to line one large pie plate. Line two 9-inch plates and divide the molasses mixture between them, or halve everything for a single pie.
- Hot ovenA 'hot oven' in this period is usually reckoned at roughly 400-450F. Thirty-five minutes at that heat is likely to scorch a molasses filling under a cake topping; start hot, around 425F, for 10 minutes to set the crust, then drop to 350F for the remainder and bake until the top springs back.
- CriscoIntroduced in 1911 as hydrogenated cottonseed oil, it is still sold, though reformulated since to remove trans fats. Any modern all-vegetable shortening works; for the pastry it gives a short, tender crust rather than a flaky one.
- The lemonOnly the grated rind is used. The juice goes unmentioned, which is likely an omission rather than intent, and a tablespoon of it sharpens the molasses considerably.
- MolassesUse unsulphured cooking molasses, not blackstrap, which is far more bitter than what was meant here. Baking molasses or a mild dark treacle is the closest match.
- The flour in the fillingTwo tablespoons for a pint of hot water plus molasses gives a loose, wet-bottomed filling that sets more like a custard than a pie filling. Rub the flour thoroughly into the sugar first or it will lump when the hot water goes in.
- Testing for doneThe under layer will still wobble when the pie comes out and firms as it cools. Judge by the top layer and by the crust edge, and cool completely before cutting.
The Story of Crisco (1913) was written by Marion Harris Neil for Procter & Gamble, part cookbook and part extended argument for a product introduced two years earlier: cottonseed oil hardened by hydrogenation into a white, shelf-stable solid fat that was neither butter nor lard. The book's job was to prove Crisco could do everything both of those did, which is why its pastry chapter works through the full American repertoire. This particular pie belongs to the molasses-and-crumb family generally traced to the Pennsylvania Dutch counties, where a wet-bottomed molasses filling under a cake or crumb topping made a pie out of pantry staples with no fruit in sight. The lemon rind is the one touch of expense in it.