Recipes
One recipe per style.
Each style's canonical recipe: a historic cookbook's, an institution's, or the published version its authorities point to. The basis for each is stated and linked.
Key Lime Pie
Key Lime Pie
The Key lime pie published by Eagle Brand, the brand of sweetened condensed milk Gail Borden patented in the 1850s. Whatever the pie’s birthplace, its filling is built on condensed milk, and one leading account credits a 1931 Borden promotional brochure with the formula. This is the brand’s current published version and calls for a ready-made crust and whipped topping.
8 servings · 5 minutes to prepare, 20 minutes to bake, at least 3 hours to chill
Shoofly Pie
“Pebble Dash” or Shoo-Fly Pie
Aunt Sarah’s recipe from Edith M. Thomas’s Mary at the Farm (1915), a cookbook gathered among the Pennsylvania Germans of Bucks County. It is one of the earliest printings of the name shoo-fly pie and gives the molasses liquid and crumb top that define the style.
Three small pies · Half an hour in a moderate oven, plus mixing
Sugar Cream Pie
Sugar Cream Pie
The recipe created by the Indiana Foodways Alliance, the nonprofit that helped write the 2009 Senate resolution for sugar cream pie, as published by Visit Indiana, the state tourism office. Visit Indiana credits it to the Bluebird Restaurant in Morristown. The Wickersham family has never published the Wick’s Pies recipe, and the Indiana Historical Society found that no original recipe exists.
One pie (size not stated) · About 90 minutes to chill the dough, plus blind-baking, cooking and baking (times not stated)
Chess Pie
Chess Cake
A chess cake contributed by Miss Jennie Macrae of Clarksville, Tennessee, to Housekeeping in the Blue Grass (1881), the cookbook of the Missionary Society of the Southern Presbyterian Church in Paris, Kentucky. It is an Upper South church-cookbook recipe from the period before the name chess pie was common in print. It is baked as small tarts.
Small tarts; number not stated · Not stated
Tart Cherry Pie
Michigan Tart Cherry Pie
The Michigan tart cherry pie published by Taste the Local Difference, a Michigan local-food organization, first printed in its 2021 Local Food Guide for Michigan. No recipe from a Michigan commodity board, extension service or historic Michigan cookbook has been found, and the Cherry Hut keeps its 1922 recipe private. The source is modern and incomplete, as the notes explain.
One 8-inch pie · Stovetop cooking until thick, cooling or overnight chilling, then baking (time not stated)
Marionberry Pie
Marionberry Pie
The marionberry pie of the RimRock Inn in Enterprise, Oregon, as published by 1859 Oregon’s Magazine in 2009. The Oregon Raspberry & Blackberry Commission, Oregon State University and the state of Oregon have published no plain marionberry pie recipe that has been found, so this restaurant recipe from an Oregon publication is used.
One 9-inch two-crust pie · 1 hour to chill the dough, 50 to 55 minutes to bake
Pecan Pie
Homemade Pecan Pie
The pecan pie published by Karo, the corn syrup brand whose advertising from about 1930 made the syrup pecan pie a national standard, according to the 2013 Texas resolution designating it the state pie. This is the company’s current published version.
8 servings · 5 minutes to prepare, 60 to 70 minutes to bake, 2 hours to cool
New England Apple Pie
Apple Pie I, with Paste with Lard
Apple Pie I and Paste with Lard from Fannie Merritt Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896), as printed in the 1906 edition. It is the standard two-crust New England apple pie as set down by the Boston Cooking School, and the pastry is the book’s own recipe for one two-crust pie.
One two-crust pie (the pastry also yields a few puffs) · 40 to 45 minutes in a moderate oven, plus pastry
Pumpkin Pie
Libby’s Famous Pumpkin Pie
LIBBY’S Famous Pumpkin Pie as published by Libby’s, a Nestlé brand, on its Very Best Baking site, in the copy archived on 29 September 2026. Libby’s says the recipe has appeared on its pumpkin labels since 1950, and The Food Historian calls the Libby’s recipe the iconic pumpkin pie on many American tables. The earlier pumpkin pie in Libby’s 1912 evaporated-milk advertisements is given in the notes.
10 servings (one 9-inch deep-dish pie) · 15 minutes to prepare; 15 minutes at 425°F and 40 minutes at 350°F to bake; 2 hours to cool
Sweet Potato Pie
Sweet Potato Pie
Recipe No. 53 from What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking (San Francisco, 1881), dictated by Abby Fisher, a formerly enslaved cook late of Mobile, Alabama. It is among the earliest sweet potato pie recipes published by an African American cook. The pastry is her No. 48, “Pastry for making Pies of all kinds.”
Two pies · Not stated; bake quickly in a hot oven