Sugar Cream Pie (Hoosier Pie)

Ingredients

• 1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust (store-bought or homemade)
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 3 tbsp melted butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract, pinch of nutmeg for topping

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Fit the crust into a 9-inch pie dish and crimp the edges.
2. Whisk the filling ingredients together in a large bowl until smooth.
3. Pour the filling into the crust.
4. Bake for 45–55 minutes, until the edges are set and the center jiggles only slightly when the pan is nudged.
5. Cool completely on a wire rack, then refrigerate at least 2 hours before slicing.

The Tale of Sugar Cream Pie (Hoosier Pie)

Story updated September 15, 2026

Indiana's sugar cream pie, sometimes called Hoosier pie, is about as humble as pie gets: cream, sugar, butter, and flour, with no eggs and no fruit, baked until the filling barely sets. It's often called a 'desperation pie,' the kind of dessert a farm cook could make in winter when the apple bins were empty and little else was on hand. Popular lore credits Indiana's small, short-lived Shaker and Amish communities with inventing it in the early 1800s, but the story doesn't quite hold up historically; Indiana's only Shaker settlement existed for just seventeen years before it was abandoned in 1827. What's certain is that the pie has been baked in Indiana farmhouses since at least the state's early decades, and in 2009 the Indiana legislature made it official, naming sugar cream pie the state's one and only state pie.