French Canadian Sugar Pie

Every year for Christmas, my we celebrate by eating and celebrating according to the customs of a different country.  My cousin is in responsible for choosing the country.  Last year we had a Philippine Christmas.  I was responsible for making pancit.

The year before last we had a Spanish Christmas.  We ate paella, flan, and a lamb stew.  It is a fun tradition.  We have also had a Mexican, French, Japanese, and Ukrainian Christmas, among others.  I remember that one of my nieces was born the day we celebrated our French Christmas.  

 

This year we had a French Canadian Christmas.  We ate poutine and sugar pie.  It was simple but delicious.  I enjoyed the poutine, but I didn't take any pictures.  Sugar pie is eaten in Northern France, Belgium, French Canada, and in the American midwest.  It is made with either brown sugar or maple syrup.  This version uses brown sugar, but maple syrup sounds delicious.

This sugar pie recipe came from allrecipes.com. Ours did not turn out as pretty as the one pictured in the recipe.  The filling crawled up the side of the pie dish and then sunk after we removed it from the oven.  The top layer was quite crusty.  My mother thought the problem could have been that we baked it at high altitude.  

Even though it looked a little funky, it was still tasty.  The ingredients are 1 pie crust, 2 eggs, 1 egg yolk, 1 cup milk, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 2 tablespoons flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 cups packed brown sugar, and 1 cup whipping cream.

 To make the pie, I added the eggs and egg yolk to a bowl.  I whisked the eggs together until they were frothy.  This took a few minutes.

I whisked in the vanilla and milk.  I used whole milk.

I whisked in the flour, salt, and brown sugar.

I flattened out the unbaked pie crust and placed it in a pie dish.

I poured the filling into the pie crust.  We were serving a crowd so we made two pies.

We baked the pie for ten minutes at 400 degrees.  We lowered the temperature to 350 and baked for another 35 to 45 minutes.  We let it cool completely on a wire wrack.

We whipped the cream and added a little powdered sugar.  We dolloped hearty portions of whipped cream on each slice.

This was a tasty pie.  It was very sweet.  The brown sugar gave the pie a caramelized flavor.  The center was almost like a custard.  The top was crunchy.  I enjoyed the crispiness, but I am not sure that is how it was supposed to be.

It was a good pie.  It was not my favorite, but I ate it with pleasure.