Best-Loved Pie & Pastry Recipes

• A

  • Amish Half-Moon Pies

  • Apple Custard Pie

• B

  • Berks County Apple Tart

  • Blackberry Pie

  • Butterscotch Pie

• C

  • Cherry Crumb Pie

  • Chocolate Pie

  • Citronenkuchen (Lemon Tarts)

  • Coconut Pie

  • Crumb Pie

  • Custard Pie

• E

  • Easy Pie Crust

  • Ebbelkuche (Apple Tart)

• G

  • Gooseberry Tart

  • Grape Pie

• H

  • Huckleberry Meringue Pie

  • Huckleberry Pie

• K

  • Karschekuche (Cherry Tart)

• L

  • Lemon Pie

  • Lemon Sponge Pie

• M

  • Milk Flitche

  • Mincemeat Pies

  • Molasses Flitche

  • Mrs. Gottshall's Lemon Strip Pie

  • Mrs. Krusen's Montgomery Pie

  • Mrs. Reinert's Funny Cake

• N

  • Nochkuche (Abe’s Have-Some-More Cake)

• O

  • Osterfladen (Easter Cake)

• P

  • Plain Pastry

  • Poor Man's Pie

  • Pumpkin Pie

• R

  • Raspberry Pie

  • Raspberry Tart

  • Rhubarb Pie

  • Rich Pastry

  • Rosina Boi (Raisin Pie)

  • Rosina Kuchen (Raisin Tarts)

• S

  • Schleck Boi (Lickin' Good Pie)

  • Sour Cherry Pie

  • Strawberry Pie

  • Strawberry Tart

  • Sweet Dough

• T

  • Taffy Pie

• V

  • Vinegar Pie

• W

  • Walnut Pie

Experts state that New England invented the fruit pie. Well certainly, the English brought pies to this country but the Pennsylvania Dutch stuck their fingers in the pie very soon thereafter.

If they didn't invent the fruit pie, it is obvious that they got hold of it and developed it to the point of no return! In Pennsylvania, the variety of fruit pies is limited only by the fruit available, for whatever it is the German housewife will turn it into a pie. There is, and has always been, pie for breakfast in Pennsylvania - and pie for lunch, dinner, and a snack at bedtime. Pie in the Pennsylvania sky, for all I know. 

You must understand that the Pennsylvania Germans have such a lien on pie making that it covers any conceivable kind of pie and, in Pennsylvania, anything eatable can be tucked into pie crust and turn into a satisfactory pie. It can be meat, vegetables, fruit, milk, eggs, molasses – anything! And, once it’s enveloped in pastry dough, that's that.

There are pies for special occasions, too, in Pennsylvania - and pies that perform special services. Poor Man's Pies, or Flitche, will make use of anything handy and satisfy the children while the major business of pie - making goes on. Amish Half - Moon Pies, or Preaching Pies, will not drip because they are stuffed with dried apples but they'll keep children quiet during long Sunday services. Rosina Boi, or Raisin Pie, bursting with the sweetness of raisins, will console mourners and satisfy their hunger. I could go on and on.

Old - timers in Pennsylvania provided a constant supply of pies by baking them by the dozen and storing them in their pierced - tin “pie cupboards.” Safe in these ventilated interiors they were always available. As the German art of pie baking spread through the state, settlers in western counties went the Pennsylvania Germans one better and ate “stack pies” at their barn raisings. 

They simply piled up six or eight different pies, cut wedges down through the whole thing, and helped themselves to a stack of all kinds of pie. It saved having to make up their minds, probable. It’s so difficult to choose between Pennsylvania pies!