I have probably baked close to a dozen shoo fly pies by this time, and I’ve learned a thing or two. 

In general I’d say I’ve gotten better at making them, thought I still make some mistakes from time to time.

I still put the pies on a cookie sheet to catch any spills in the oven in case they bake over, but I think I discovered why they were sometimes overflowing the baking pan.

The recipe calls for one cup of molasses or dark corn syrup, as I’ve explained previously, and I use corn syrup. When you measure out the corn syrup into a measuring cup and then pour it into the mixing bowl, some of it remains in the measuring cup—unless you want to hold the cup upside down over the bowl for who knows how long until the last drop finally drains. Well, a couple times when the jar of corn syrup was nearly empty, I slightly overfilled the measuring cup, figuring that would make up for what was left behind. Those were the times when the pie baked over.

I think the recipe actually only needs slightly less than one cup of dark corn syrup; it just assumes you’ll measure it out and leave a little bit left behind in the cup and not worry about it. That may be why my mother never had a problem with her pies baking over; she probably never worried about getting the last drop out of the cup. 

Also, I had intended to experiment with using real molasses in one of my shoo fly pies, just to see how different the flavor would be. One time when I was baking, I hadn’t checked my ingredients ahead of time, and I didn’t have quite enough dark corn syrup to make a full cup; it only came to about three quarters of a cup. (Since then I always make sure to keep one jar in reserve.)

So I substituted a quarter cup of molasses for the missing corn syrup. I couldn’t believe the difference in flavor it made, and not for the better. So I scratched my plans to make a molasses shoo fly pie; I think I got my answer. I vastly prefer the dark corn syrup variety.

And for what it’s worth, I’ve discovered to my surprise that the shoo fly pies I make in disposable aluminum plates turn out better than those I make in my glass pie plate. It probably has something to do with the oven temperature and the baking time, and maybe if I were so inclined I could figure it out.