Chances are if you’ve inherited a recipe box or family cookbook, you’ll find a handwritten and stained recipe for sugar cream pie. Probably no other dessert conjures up nostalgia in a Hoosier like the rich, creamy dessert.
It’s believed the recipe was brought to eastern Indiana around 1810 by North Carolina Quakers, who settled in the Richmond, Winchester, New Castle and Portland areas.
Sugar cream pie is the state’s unofficial state pie. There was an effort to give it official status in 2009, but the measure never made it to the governor’s desk.
It's also known as finger pie (you can mix it with your fingers), transparent pie, Hoosier pie anddesperation pie (when fruit wasn't available or money was tight and you really wanted a piece of pie). It's made with simple ingredients you should already have on hand -- and in the early days that would mean a cow and sugar. Pie purists agree a true sugar cream pie doesn’t include eggs.
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Wick’s Pies in Winchester is believed to be the world’s largest producer of sugar cream pies. Duane “Wick” Wickersham, began selling pies from his restaurant and out of a Buick Sedan in 1944. He built a factory in 1961 and the company churns out 10,000 pies a day.
Iffor purely unscientific research purposes, you wanted to test out the variations of sugar cream pie, or any other pie for that matter, the Indiana Foodways Alliance Hoosier Pie Trail includes 21 restaurants to get your pie on. The trail placed fourth out of 20 food trails across the nation in a 2015 USA Today Best Reader’s Choice Contest.
The long-closedDurbin Hotel in Rushville was synonymous with sugar cream pie. The quaint, family-owned hotel was founded in 1926 by Leo and Mary Durbin also served as Wendell L. Willkie's 1940 presidential campaign headquarters. The hotel closed on Christmas Eve 1979, but the recipe for the pie was one of the most requested recipes by Indianapolis Star readers. Here's that recipe:
Durbin's Old-Fashioned Cream Pie
Makes 4 pies
4 partially baked 9-inch pastry shells
4 cups sugar
1 1/2 quarts half and half
Dash of salt
1 1/2 cups butter
1/2 cup margarine
5 1/3 ounces cornstarch (about a scant 3/4 cup)
Nutmeg
Heat to boiling the half and half, 3 cups sugar and salt.
Mix together 1 cup sugar and cornstarch. Add boiling milk mixture gradually to sugar-cornstarch mixture. Set aside about 2 tablespoons butter, add remaining butter and margarine to sugar mixture; return to heat and cook, stirring until thick.
Pour into baked shells and sprinkle with nutmeg and a few dots of the reserved butter. Bake at 350 degrees until lightly browned, about 15 minutes.
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