When people hear water pie, it sounds a little ridiculous, especially when they learn it is precisely how it sounds. For example, a pie made using water as its filling!
It may sound silly, but the water pie was a humble invention created during the Great Depression when food was scarce. Thus, meals had to be stretched as much as possible. Thanks to Social media (especially viral food trends on TikTok), the water pie has risen from the grave to people's plates. However, people are raving about the pie and its apparent delicious flavors. Delve into a bit of history (and cooking lesson) about the humble water pie!
What Is The Water Pie?
The Great Depression was a time in history when resources were scarce, forcing people to stretch their meals and even share their resources through potlucks. This forced home cooks to get creative, using whatever they could to make comforting meals for the family. Commodities like sugar, eggs, and milk were challenging to obtain or too costly. Thus, many families had to make due, getting maximum mileage from the foods they had lying in their pantry, fridge, and freezer.
The water pie was a recipe born from this circumstance. The pie was a way to put comforting and delicious dessert on the table during a tough time. Though baking essentials were difficult to come by, families could still enjoy a delightful dessert with minimal ingredients. In addition, it was a way to save some money and stretch ingredients!
How Do You Make A Water Pie?
She mentions that the recipe was developed with family in mind. She says that her friend's (Kay West) grandmother worked hard to put food on the table for a family of 10, making her meals from scratch! So the water pie was a way for her family to still enjoy a sweet dessert during times of scarcity.
The water pie is incredibly simple and involves using a pie dough (one can buy a pre-made one), sugar, cubes of butter, some flour, vanilla extract, and water. The pie filling becomes custard-like upon baking, similar to the scrumptious fillings of traditional pies!
As a cooking tip, it's recommended to wait several hours for the pie to cool. Biting into the hot pie is like dipping one's tongue in a scalding hot glass of water! Instead, cooks recommended leaving the pie to chill (especially in the fridge) before digging in.
Are There Other Desserts Similar To Water Pie?
Dessert was not left out during the Great Depression. At-home cooks were dedicated to ensuring their families got heartwarming meals during these rough times. Despite shortages of baking essentials like eggs, butter, or milk, people did what they could to thrive on what they had.
Home bakers can also try recipes for Depression cake, a chocolate cake devoid of eggs and dairy (due to the limited availability and costliness of these ingredients). Budget Bytes has a perfect recipe for cheap depression cake, which uses vinegar, cocoa powder, water, sugar, and flour (among other ingredients). Additionally, it's a budget-friendly recipe and costs only about $2.41 for the whole recipe!
Baked apples were also another dessert made during the great depression. However, some families had very little access to fruits like apples. Instead, they relied on substitutes to get by. For example, vinegar was also used in many recipes. Some people used apple cider vinegar in place of apples to make a pie, giving the pie an incredibly tangy taste!
Additionally, even with no apples, apple pie can be made: Ritz's mock apple pie, that is! The pie was made using crushed-up Ritz crackers with sugar and other ingredients snuggled into a pie base. The result is a flaky pie with a delicious filling that oddly resembles the same consistency and flavor as actual apple pie. To date, the mock apple pie is one of Ritz's famous recipes, even years after the Great Depression ended! The pie is a perfect staple for any household. But, even by today's standards, it can be a cheap alternative (even by today's standards) to grace the kitchen table.
Though the water pie is a pretty unique recipe, other similar recipes are available for the curious baker. For example, May Wilson from Alaska From Scratch posted their recipe for a buttermilk pie, which involved lemon, lemon zest, eggs, butter, and buttermilk (among other ingredients).
The best part is that it's cost-effective and simple to make, like easy truffle recipes! Though the water pie is a stark reminder of what things were, it's also considered one of the yummiest and one of the many incredible recipes to come out of the Great Depression.
