Chocolate Shoofly Pie with Pecan Whole Wheat Crust-Stephie's Virtual Bridal Shower

Yay! Yay! YAYYY!!!

Today is super duper exciting: We're holding a SURPRISE virtual bridal shower for Stephie of Stephie Cooks! (Are you surprised, Stephie!!?) Myself, Stef, and Steph, teamed up with a bunch more of Stephie's bloggy buds to celebrate the amazingness that is Stephie and the excitement we all have for her and her soon-to-be hubby, Alex!

I LOVE LOVE Stephie-she's a fantastic baker, has the coolest mom, and she's just the sweetest gal. She's also been featured on this blog a couple times already. So I am thrilled to celebrate her happiness today with a bunch of her other friends!

Stephie's wedding is coming up SOON and--because I'm nosy and also because I was doing some espionage-style research for this shower--I asked Stephie to share some deets about the upcoming nuptials! And what I learned is so fitting and so perfect for them. They're having a beautiful rustic-elegance style wedding with turquoise and pinks: gorgeous. And for food? BBQ! (Which is perfect, esp. because Alex is a major carnivore) and cupcakes and pie instead of the standard cake--again...adorable and perfect! (And I wish I could be there to see-and taste-it all! But I'll settle for just drooling over wedding photos :D) Anyway, I really wanted to use their wedding as inspiration for what I was going to make!

And-in addition to the fact that they are having pie-when I think of that sort of country feeling...I think of pie. And shoofly pies and barns go together like....well....Stephie and Alex :)

But! Since they're doing that rustic-chic spin, I decided to get a little fancy with my shoofly pie as well. So I made it a chocolate shoofly pie. And I put pecans on top (which, although optional, you should 100% do because they toast when the pie bakes and they're maybe the best part of the pie). And I made a whole wheat pecan pie crust (which is the perfect accompaniment). But first of all...what is a shoofly pie?

Shoofly pies are traditional among the Pennsylvania Dutch and they're pretty much a molasses based pie. (The name shoofly comes because the scent of molasses attracts flies and they had to "shoo" them away). Now-in case you didn't know-molasses is what makes brown sugar different from granulated sugar. So-it's pretty much awesome. I made a wet bottomed version, which means that there is a crumb topping but the bottom is more sticky and...well..."wet". And, although it's not healthy, it's not terribly awful for you. There's very little butter and not a great deal of sugar either. It's pretty much just molasses and water and such. Oh...and in this case....chocolate. Which I think really helped make it a bit more sweet and rich. I loved how rustic it turned out! And the textures-you have that nutty earthy whole wheat pie crust, the gooey chocolatey/molasses-y filling, a slightly crisp crumb topping and then the toasted pecans and sea salt take it from being just an "Ok" dessert to a "Mmmmm give me another piece!" sort of pie. I loved it. I think Stephie & Alex would (even though chocolate isn't usually Stephie's biggest thing), and I know you will too!

Now check out all the other delicious things Stephie's blogger friends made for her virtual shower!

The Cooking Actress – Chocolate Shoofly Pie with Pecan Whole Wheat Crust
Girl Versus Dough – Mini Meyer Lemon Coconut Scones
Sarcastic Cooking – Mini Buffalo Blue Cheese Chicken Pot Pies
The Roasted Root – Sweet Potato Rounds with Guacamole and Bacon
A Cedar Spoon – Strawberry Mint Mascarpone Crostini with Lemon Honey Drizzle
Very Culinary – White Chocolate Raspberry Parfaits
Rachel Cooks – Broccoli and Bacon Beer Cheese Dip
Bluebonnet Baker – Maple Bourbon Balls
Nutmeg Nanny – Broccoli Bacon Salad
Laura’s Mess – Spiced Apple and Buttermilk Cake
Seaweed and Sassafras – Herband Cheese Scones
Stetted – Meyer Lemon Meringue Pie
All Day I Dream About Food – Chocolate Fudge Crumb Bars
Dessert for Two – Mini Lemon Cakes
Foodie with Family – Smoked Salmon Cucumber Pizza

Pumpkin Pie with Whole Wheat Crust and Cinnamon Caramel Whipped Cream-Stahlbush Farms Review

Pumpkin pie is the first pie I can remember loving. Every Thanksgiving, without fail, my mom would make 2 pies and fill the whole house with that delicious, pumpkin-spice smell. And then I would have to wait, patiently*, for them to cool. My reward was a gorgeous slice of pie with a big dollop of Cool Whip that I would then proceed to scrape out of the crust (because I didn't like pie crust at that time...my theory on this is because I had yet to try a HOMEMADE pie crust at that point.) 

Now I'm grown up. And I made a grown up version of my beloved pumpkin pie.

*(not so patiently)

As a "grown up" I've really gotten into eating food from scratch: real, natural, and oft-times organic food. So when I was approached by Stahlbush Farms, I jumped at the chance to review some of their product.

"Stahlbush Island Farms is an environmentally friendly farm and food processor committed to sustainable agriculture and exceptional quality. Stahlbush has been family-owned since 1985."

Check out all the amazing products Stahlbush offers (plus the products from their Farmer's Market brand!) 

Stahlbush Farms sent me some super tasty frozen grapes to try AND-dun dun dun duuuun!- their Farmer's market brand Organic Pumpkin! And obviously I knew what I had to do: make a healthier pumpkin pie (after all, when dealing with an organic pumpkin puree with no additives, I couldn't ruin it with a bunch of other gunk). So I made a whole wheat pie crust, and topped it off with a just slightly sinful cinnamon caramel whipped cream. Mmmm yes.

I'm gonna be straight with you right now: when I was making this pie I felt like everything was going wrong. I had some issues with the pie crust being too sticky (I had to throw half of it out! Ugh, don't worry though-just follow the instructions below and you should be good. I've updated them so you hopefully won't have my problems) and THEN I was a big old idiot and poured the pie filling into the crust....before I'd mixed the evaporated milk in. *sigh* I only had a minor conniption, eased by the Michael playing "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls (he thought it might help calm me down, he was right). End of the day, everything turned out fine. I fixed all the problemos. And still ended up with a tasty tasty pie. 

Crisp, flaky, hearty pie crust. Creamy, dreamy, spiced to perfection pumpkin filling. And a sweet whipped cream with just a hint of spice on top. Oh little Kayle, you had no idea what heights pumpkin pie could reach.

Make this for Thanksgiving. Impress everyone. You're welcome.