Space Manager Matt Hunter hails from Georgia but he has a Scottish grandmother who is renowned for this unusual pie. He made it for our holiday photo shoot and it disappeared in minutes. We all wanted seconds. If you make this pie, please invite us over.
Matt’s Butterscotch Pie
This wonder of the world comes from my granny, Nancy Hunter, and is almost its own holiday. Drop her a message if you make it and love it.
Starter’s note: if you want this to be a pie, you’ll need a pie crust. But really, whatever works for you. You could go crustless and make this in little single serving bowls. You could use your own special homemade crust. Here’s one I like to make, but of course, store bought is fine.
Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.
In a bowl, combine 1 cup packed brown sugar and three heaping spoonfuls flour. Flatten any clumps.
Bring 1.5 cups milk to a simmer in a sauce pan. Pour a splash of the hot milk into your brown sugar/flour mixture, just enough to stir and combine. With a spatula, scrape this mixture from the bowl back into your sauce pan. And over medium heat, stir mixture to combine and thicken, working out any spots that want to lump together. At this point, you should have a beautiful butterscotch filling, but keep going. It could take you 3-5 minutes — stir with confidence and joy, and as soon as you’ve achieved a stiff pudding, remove the pan from heat.
Stir in 2 egg yolks (set the whites aside), 1/2 tsp vanilla, and 3 tbsp butter. Add a generous pinch or two of salt. Stir it all together. If you’re filling’s a little loose, stir it some more over heat to bring it back together, then remove it again once it looks like it’ll hold.
Take those egg whites, a whisk, and a cold bowl, and beat them til foaming (if you have a machine that will do this for you, definitely use it). Once foamy, begin to add three tablespoons of sugar, one at a time, while beating, until stiff peaks form. Alchemy! You’ve got your meringue.
Now take out your crust, spoon in the filling, and lather meringue over the top. I bake it at 350 for about 25-30 minutes, but no hard and fast rule here. Just don’t burn it.
Pull it from the oven and have it right away with fresh whipped cream, sugarless. Or custard, fruit, ice cream, whatever. Cool it for later and it’ll stand up like an actual meringue pie. You can’t lose.
Enjoy! — Matt
This holiday season, the Target Margin family shares their special holiday recipes. Recipes for food — for celebration no matter where you come from — for looking ahead into the future. But the secret ingredient that we can’t do without is YOU. We depend on our staunch and generous donors bake the world a better place, to rise higher, to keep feeding the starter. Please consider giving a tax-deductible gift this season.