Pennsylvania Dutch shoofly pie
Photo: Syounan Taji · CC BY-SA 3.0

Molasses-and-brown-sugar custard pie with a crumb topping, baked deep, served in slabs at Reading Terminal Market and Lancaster County diners. Wet-bottom is the canonical style.

Shoofly pie is the canonical Pennsylvania Dutch dessert, born in 18th-century Lancaster County kitchens that had molasses and flour but not chocolate. The name comes from the cooks shooing flies away from the sticky molasses surface as the pie cooled. Two styles run: wet-bottom (the molasses layer stays soft and gooey beneath a crumb top) and dry-bottom (the molasses bakes into the crust). Lancaster's Bird-in-Hand and Intercourse bakeries each claim their own version; in Philadelphia, Beiler's Bakery at Reading Terminal Market and Dutch Eating Place have run wet-bottom shoofly pies since 1984 and 1974 respectively. The pie pairs with strong black coffee at breakfast or as a 3pm snack.

2 editor picks for Pennsylvania Dutch shoofly pie in Philadelphia, ranked by editorial score. All Philadelphia signature dishes · Pennsylvania Dutch shoofly pie across every city.

Reading Terminal Market ★ 4.8

$Market

Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia is the 1893 enclosed public market under the old Reading Railroad train shed at 12th and Arch, with 80 vendors.

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Beiler's Doughnuts ★ 4.5

$Bakery

Beiler's Doughnuts in Philadelphia is the Pennsylvania Dutch family-run Reading Terminal Market bakery since 1984, with hand-cut yeasted doughnuts.

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