It's

Cozy Food Friday!

That means it's time to share a recipe from 

another great cozy mystery!

Today's recipe comes from 

PIES AND PREJUDICE

Book 1 in the Charmed Pie Shoppe Mystery series

by Ellery Adams

When the going gets tough, Ella Mae LaFaye bakes pies. So when she catches her husband cheating in New York, she heads back home to Havenwood, Georgia, where she can drown her sorrows in fresh fruit filling and flakey crust. But her pies aren't just delicious. They're having magical effects on the people who eat them--and the public is hungry for more.

Discovering her hidden talent for enchantment, Ella Mae makes her own wish come true by opening the Charmed Pie Shoppe. But with her old nemesis Loralyn Gaynor making trouble, and her old crush Hugh Dylan making nice, she has more than pie on her plate. and when Loralyn's fiancé is found dead--killed with Ella Mae's rolling pin--it'll take all her sweet magic to clear her name.

I'm in Lancaster County, PA for the weekend. 

Amish / Pennsylvania Dutch country. 

So, I thought this recipe would be appropriate to share.

CHARMED SHOOFLY PIE

Ingredients

1 Charmed Piecrust (Recipe below. Recipe makes 2 crusts so you can freeze the                                            extra for another time)

1 cup flour

2/3 cup dark brown sugar

3 tablespoons butter

1 cup molasses

1 large egg, beaten

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup boiling water

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

   Make Charmed Piecrust. Roll out crust and place on bottom of 9-inch pie dish (Ella Mae recommends a glass pie dish for this pie.) Trim off extra dough and pinch sides of dough. 

   Mix together first three ingredients until butter is integrated (using the pulse button on a food processor works nicely.) Reserve 1/2 cup of crumb mixture. 

   Add molasses, beaten egg, and baking soda into mixture. Then add boiling water and mix well. Pour the filling into pie dish. Scatter reserved crumb mixture evenly atop pie. 

   Bake for 18 minutes, then lower temperature to 350 degrees and bake another 20 minutes until the crust is golden and center of pie is only a bit wobbly. Cool for 1 hour. 

This pie is very rich and Ella Mae recommends that you serve it with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. 

NOTE: All images are from Google Images and/or Pinterest. 

Your dish may vary in appearance.

CHARMED PIECRUST

Ingredients 

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus extra for rolling

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, very cold, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (to make                                        butter cold enough, put in freezer for 15 minutes before use)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

6 to 8 tablespoons very cold water

Directions

   Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor; pulse to mix. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal and you have pea-sized pieces of butter. Add ice water 1 tablespoon at a time, pulsing until mixture begins to clump together. Put some dough between you fingers. If it holds together, it's ready. If it falls apart, you need a little more water. You'll see bits of butter in the dough. This is a good thing, as it will give you a nice, flaky crust. 

   Mound dough and place on a clean surface. Gently shape into 2 discs of equal size. Do not overknead. Sprinkle a little flour around the discs. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour. 

   Remove first crust disk from refrigerator. Let sit at room temperature for 5 minutes or until soft enough to roll.  Roll out with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface to a 12-inch circle (Ella Mae uses a pie mat to help measurements). Gently transfer to a 9-inch pie plate. Carefully press the pie dough down so that it lines the bottom and sides of the pie plate. Use kitchen scissors to trim the dough to with-in 1/2 inch edge of the pie dish. 

(The last part of the directions that follow are for pies with a top crust. Shoofly Pie does not have a top crust, so freeze the second disk of dough for later use.)

Roll out second disk of dough and place on top of the pie filling. Pinch top and bottom of dough firmly together. Trim excess dough with kitchen shears, leaving about an inch of overhang. Fold the edge of the top piece of dough over and under the edge of the bottom piece of dough, pressing together. Flute edges by pinching with thumb and forefinger. Remember to score the center of the top crust with a few small cuts so that steam can escape. 

I may have to try some Shoofly pie while 

I'm here in Pennsylvania.

Keep reading to check out my installments of 

Book Beginnings on Fridays

and

The Friday 56 

Book Beginnings on Fridays is a meme hosted by Rose City Reader

Share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading

Keeping my Cozy Food Friday theme going... 

Book Beginnings this week is from

PIES AND PREJUDICE by Ellery Adams

Book 1 in the Charmed Pie Shoppe Mystery series

Ella Mae LaFaye Kitteridge slammed a ball of dough onto the counter top, sending a snowstorm of flour into the air. With angry fingers, she worked pinches of flour into the moist dough and then flattened it with her palm, her hazel eyes flashing a dangerous crocodile green. 

The Friday 56 is a meme hosted by Freda's Voice

Rules: *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader (If you have to improvise, that's okay.) *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grab you. *Post it.

Continuing with the PIES AND PREJUDICE theme

My Friday 56

"I've got a date with a hot mailman," she'd explained to Ella Mae. 

"My regular carrier is about as sexy as an elephant seal, but he's recoverin' from foot surgery and the United States Postal Service saw fit to send me a James Dean lookalike. Sure, he's older and thicker in the waist than Jimmy D., but I sure like the spark of devilry I see in his eyes."

Check out the other great titles in this series.

Book 2 PEACH PIES AND ALIBIS

Book 3 PECAN PIES AND HOMICIDE

and 

coming April 7, 2015

Book 4 

LEMON PIES AND LITTLE WHITE LIES

After Pecan Pies and Homicides comes another tangy slice of life—and death—in a charmed, and charming, small town...
 
Ella Mae LeFaye’s Charmed Pie Shoppe has become a phenomenon beyond her wildest dreams, providing the enchanted town of Havenwood, Georgia, with spellbinding desserts and magical pies. Her personal life is also heating up as she takes on the responsibilities of leadership within her magical community. In fact, the only thing weighing her down is the fact that handsome Hugh Dylan won’t return her calls…
 
Still, when Havenwood is rocked by a series of mysterious deaths, Ella Mae must put romantic longings aside—especially when she realizes that the mystical symbols left at each crime scene are dangerously personal. Now she will have to whip up all her supernatural skills to uncover a killer out to settle an ancient score—before the murderer devastates everything Ella Mae is determined to protect…

Learn more about author

Ellery Adams

Ellery on the Web

Ellery on Facebook

Ellery on Twitter

Ellery on Amazon

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