Water Pie - Recipe from the Great Depression (2024)

FAQs

What is water pie made of? ›

The pie is made by adding water mixed with sugar, flour and butter, and sometimes some spice such as vanilla or cinnamon, to a pie crust. The starch in the flour makes the mixture set and thicken, thus acquiring a custard-like consistency. Soft drinks such as Sprite may be used in place of water.

I think you'll really enjoy the simplicity of this water pie. It has a creamy buttery taste, similar to a custard pie or warm vanilla cookie once it's chilled and sliced. Half the thrill will be telling your family the name and that the main ingredient is water!

A common depression cake is also known as "Boiled Raisin Cake", "Milkless, Eggless, Butterless Cake", or "Poor Man's Cake". "Boiled" refers to the boiling of raisins with the sugar and spices to make a syrup base early in the recipe. However, some bakers do include butter.

How to make a tender pie dough that can stand up to rough handling? Doughs need moisture for a supple texture, but moisture activates gluten, the protein in wheat that makes doughs tough.

What does water pie taste like? Without a lot of ingredients competing for your tastebuds' attention, water pie's flavor profile can be described as “sweet.” The custard filling is gelatinous and translucent, with a texture not unlike the one in chess pie.

But that's not the case with water pie, also known as hard times pie, a recipe born out of the Great Depression, per Atlas Obscura. A pie filling composed mainly of water might sound nutty, but it made sense during the harsh economic times of the 1930s.

Chef Paula Haney shares with Duff the bakery's recipe for the Fat Elvis Pie, which was inspired by Elvis Presley's love of peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches. The pie includes chocolate pastry cream, peanut butter filling and slices of banana in a crust made of graham cracker crumbs, dry roasted peanuts and pretzels.

What is the favorite pie of Black people? African-Americans today have continued the tradition of sweet potato pie with holiday dinners. So yes, sweet potato pie is a Black thing – easy enough for anyone to make, and everyone to love!

Water Pie. Water pie — made with just six ingredients: water, flour, sugar, vanilla extract, butter, and a pie crust — may seem like a fun hack today, but during the Great Depression, it was simply a dessert that reflected the circ*mstances for many Americans.

What did slaves eat for dessert? ›

During the week, if there was a dessert, it would be a piece of corn bread with some molasses poured on top or some fruit. In addition, slave cabins rarely had the cooking equipment or appliances necessary to adequately bake a pie.

The acid in the apple cider vinegar tenderizes the dough by slowing the gluten production in the dough. This prevents it from getting tough and elastic like bread dough. Love me tender. If you've ever bitten into a slice of pie with a tough crust, you know the value in a tender, flaky pie crust.

The pros: Butter has the best flavor. A butter pie crust forms light, lofty, flaky layers while it bakes. The flakiness comes partially from the water content of butter, which evaporates as the pie bakes and turns to steam, separating and puffing up the layers in dough.

The vodka works for two reasons. First, it makes the dough feel way more moist and easier to work with. Second, the ethanol in the vodka stops the gluten in the flour from binding, making for a more tender end product.

Hot water crust is traditionally used for producing hand-made pies. As the name suggests, the pastry is made by heating water, melting the fat in it, bringing the mixture to a boil, and finally incorporating the flour. This can be done by beating the flour into the mixture in the pan, or by kneading on a pastry board.

Hot water crust is made up of flour, salt, fat, and water. Unlike my favorite all-butter pie dough, the recipe for hot water crust usually calls for a mixture of all-purpose and bread flour.

Shropshire fidget pie is a hearty, traditional British bake made with gammon, cooking apples, onions and potatoes. No one knows exactly where fidget (or fidgety) pie comes from, but there are different versions of it in most of the counties around The Midlands.