For as far back as I can remember, my grandmother has made butterscotch pie for Thanksgiving, and because Thanksgiving is the only time of year that it is deemed socially appropriate to serve oneself a slice of each pie available, I set about creating the perfect dessert bite. On its own, butterscotch pie is something that I could take or leave, but part of a medley? It’s the cornerstone of Thanksgiving dessert.
I usually start with fudge pie and pecan pie, arranging a bit of each onto a fork before moving methodically to scoop soft, silky butterscotch pie onto the very same cutlery. Its custard is sweet, rich, and a little nutty—the perfect compliment to the dense fudge and gooey pecan. Punctuated by silky meringue, it electrifies every bite.
“I have made butterscotch pies almost as long as I can remember,” my grandmother “CC” tells me. She got the recipe from her Great Aunt Gertie, who’d make butterscotch pies for lunch on Sundays as my grandma peered out from under the kitchen table, where she was small enough to hide. In an age before the Great British Bake-Off—or any cooking show, for that matter—CC learned to cook from watching Gertie methodically scoop and caramelize sugar from the comfort of a cozy enclave draped with tablecloth.
“As soon as I had time and intelligence, I got that recipe and started making them,” she told me. And she did, for just about every occasion: Sundays, holidays, and various occasions deemed special or significant. Sometimes these occasions were as charged with healing, a necessary softness, as they were with celebration: When my sister was born in 1983, my grandma made a butterscotch pie for my mom, and she did the same 10 years later, when I was born.
“She always made it in a cast-iron skillet,” my mom told me, “and I distinctly remember watching the butter, sugar, and milk caramelize.” When CC and my grandfather divorced, she went back to school to get her nursing degree, and life got a little busier.
What hasn’t changed is this: CC, a natural caretaker, will do just about anything for us, her grandchildren, even when we take it a little too far. She once made my sister the butterscotch pie filling without the crust—pudding style—upon request. My sister, recovering from knee surgery and roused by the promise of CC’s pudding, loved it so much that she actually ate too much. My sister’s appetite for it still stands. “I [still] remember the smell,” my sister says. “Warm and golden.”
Today, the recipe is easy on arthritic hands. The virtues of cook-and-serve pudding that took domestic kitchens by storm in the 1950s proved useful for arthritic hands. She may not have had as much time as when she first started out baking it, but CC’s butterscotch pie found its way onto the table at every occasion nonetheless.
A pinch of salt and vanilla deepen the flavors of the pudding mix, and melted butterscotch chips have just the right notes of molasses and brown sugar. The topping has always stayed the same. “The meringue,” my mom said, “was always pillowy and amazing.” And it still is—and will be—for as long as I can possibly make it.
Photo: Caitlin Bensel; Food Styling: Torie Cox