Butterscotch Pie
I like to interview my mom Lori before I write about a recipe to see what she remembers. She found these cups while visiting the cabin recently. “All I remember is mom loved butterscotch pudding and made it often and put it in green stemmed dessert cups. She loved butterscotch so much and always kept butterscotch chips on hand.”
Butterscotch Pie
1 cup br. sugar
1 cup milk
2 T butter
3 T cornstarch
dash salt
Boil 6 Min.
Add yolk of 2 eggs + boil 2 minutes.
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We had a fun one trying to decide the best way to tackle this recipe since it did not have a lot of directions. It was written on a page with two other recipes from Ethel, Esther (Johnson) Pabst’s sister, or my grandpa’s aunt.
Like is there supposed to be a pie crust? Is it chilled, or baked first and then chilled?
As is my nature, I researched all the butterscotch pie recipes across the internet, trying to find something similar. From what I could gather, a pie like this was intended to be made using a classic pie crust, not a graham cracker crust or anything like that.
There were a few different processes used for a from-scratch butterscotch pie, but the main idea was the same: a custard is made on the stove and poured into a prebaked pie crust. Then it is either put in the fridge to set, or baked for a few minutes and then chilled in the fridge.
Deanna tried using a double boiler to mix her custard, but it was taking a very long time to start thickening. Warming the custard in a pan directly on the burner seemed to work better. We decided to give our pies a few minutes in the oven to set the custard, 400 degrees for 5-10 minutes. Then after cooling, we gave the pie some time in the fridge to further firm up.
This pie filling was very tasty and almost candy like. It seems to be a very thin layer of pie filling in relation to the crust, though the intensity of the butterscotch flavor allowed the filling to crust ratio to work. My kids loved it, but I wasn’t totally satisfied with the results.
Determined to make the pie I had hoped for, I decided to test one of the reference recipes I found in my initial research, and thought I’d share that here as well. I think Gramma June would have loved this pie.
The filling has double the milk and double the butter of Ethel’s resulting in a creamier, more pudding like pie filling. And we topped it with whipped cream. We loved it so much, it may make the Thanksgiving menu at our house.
