Indiana - Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie

50 weeks, 50 states, 50 desserts

The first state is Delaware, having ratified the U.S. Constitution on December 7, 1787.  Delaware's official state dessert is peach pie, although there isn't too much of the peach industry left in the state.  Since peaches are out of season and I can't find any here in the great state, I'm choosing another state to start this journey.

Indiana - The Hoosier State

State #19

December 11, 1816
 

I've chosen Indiana for a few reasons.  1. The wife's family is from there, and I've been to the state numerous times but I have never had Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie.  2.  I had my eye on this pie since I first saw the list but hadn't had a chance to make it yet.  3.  It's easy, needing only a few ingredients. 

To get started I needed to make another pie crust.  Here's a problem I had: I made and baked the crust yesterday, but I thought I needed an unbaked crust for this recipe.  Turns out, either way, baked or unbaked, would of been fine (I think) it just depends on which recipe you use.  I wanted to use an unbaked crust and I wanted to try to make one again. What happened to the baked crust from yesterday?  I dumped some jello pudding in the center and sliced it up.  That, is the state of a cheap pie.   And that crust yesterday was as dry as a communion cracker and I could barely cut through it to make the pieces. 

I thought I might use a different crust recipe, but in the end decided not to.  I did a little reading to see how I could improve it, but didn't really find anything too substantial.  Overall, crust making went much better this time.  One thing I did differently is that I spent more time mixing the flour and salt with the shortening.  Also, I did read that things need to be cold, some recipes even say to refrigerate the dough before rolling it out.   With that in mind, while I made the dough, I placed some ice packs on the counter where I would be rolling out the dough and I stuck the rolling pin in the freezer.  Then, when rolling out the dough, the parchment paper goes between the dough and the pin, not between the dough and the counter.  Remembering that did help a lot.  

See?  Look how nice and flat and un-cracked it is!

I was even able to kind of flute it.  It's not perfect, but better than last time.  Does this mean I'm now a flautist?  I've always wanted to be in a marching band.

On to the pie!

Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie

2 cups heavy cream 

1/2 cup all-purpose flour 

1/2 cup brown sugar 

1/2 cup granulated sugar 

3 tablespoons granulated sugar, for sprinkling 

1/2 cup whole milk 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

9-inch piecrust 

1 tablespoon unsalted butter 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon  

Preheat oven to 350F. 

For filling: In a medium bowl, combine heavy cream, flour, brown sugar, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, milk, and vanilla.

Very easy.  Six ingredients all mixed up.

 Fit crust into a 9-inch pie pan and dot bottom with butter. Pour filling into crust.

When I started pouring this in it filled up to the top of the crust.  No skimping!

Combine cinnamon and remaining 3 tablespoons sugar and sprinkle on top.

"Spinkled" in an unbaked crust.  Either the crust will come out raw or it'll be perfect.  At least there isn't anything in crust other than flour, salt, and shortening.  And those can't kill you.  ---Well, eating them raw won't kill you at least.

Bake pie until set and center is firm to touch, about 1 hour. Cool on a wire rack.

The top of mine became set/hard, so I took it out of the oven.  And, notice my fluting isn't great.

While cooling I saw this crack in the pie.  It went all the way around the edge like this.    Everything on the top was hard, but the insides still had some wiggle, so I put it in the fridge because when it comes to pie cooling, we always choose speeding things up rather than letting it cool naturally.

Here's the finished product!

I think the different "layers" are because it isn't completely cooled all the way through yet.  The pie is nice and sweet with an almost custard like texture.  

 
There are a lot of recipes for Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie, or Sugar Pie.  A couple of recipes even said you could mix the ingredients in the pie crust.  Just dump them in and mix them up.    This recipe is from delish.com

Cost:
Heavy Cream: $2.31
Vanilla: $3.48
Today Total: $5.79
Project Total $13.31

Weight: Unchanged, 151