Tarte au Sucre

The Canadian brown sugar pie is a very traditional pie served in eastern Canada, specifically Quebec, around the holidays called ‘tarte au sucre’. My Grand-Mother always made a few sugar pies and froze them to have them on hand for the holidays. It reminds me a bit of pecan pie filling, minus the nuts, but smoother and firmer in texture. If you’re from Indiana, you may know this dish as Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie.

I know mile-high pies usually get all the love, but this brown sugar pie is baked in an 8″ pie plate, making it a somewhat thin pie. It’s definitely sweet and a small piece goes a long way!!! Believe it or not, vanilla ice cream is served with the pie to ‘cut through the sweetness’!  

Be sure to place the sugar pie on a baking sheet as you put it in the over to prevent spills.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup condensed milk
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 2 tsp. butter, softened
• 1 tbs. flour
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp. maple extract
• 2 – 8″ pie crusts

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F degrees.
2. Bring the condensed and whole milks, brown sugar and butter to a simmer over medium heat in a heavy saucepan. When small bubbles form at the surface, cook for 2 minutes, whisking occasionally.
3. In a small cup/bowl, stir the maple extract, the flour and 2 tablespoons of hot mixture to form a paste. Add this paste to hot mixture and whisk to fully incorporate.  Cook until thickened, about 3 minutes.
4. Pour the sugar mixture into an un-baked pie crust and cover with a second crust.
5. Bake until browned, about 25 minutes. 

Serve with vanilla ice cream at room temperature or warm. The pie keeps well wrapped in foil for up to a week (not that it’ll last that long). You could also bake the pie, cool it and wrap in several layers of plastic wrap then foil and freeze for a month.

Yields 8 servings.