PIEATHALON 7: Betty Crocker’s Sombrero Pie (1971)

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by yinzerella

Hello! Welcome to Pieathalon 2020: The Seventh Pieathalon!

Quick explanation of the Pieathalon for those of you who are virgins:

The Pieathalon is a virtual pie party where bloggers from across the globe join to make pies of the past. Basically, each blogger submits a pre-1985 pie recipe, which are then randomly assigned to another person. Everyone bakes their assigned pies and then we all unveil our results on the same day.

Simple, right?

As the hostess of this annual event, I can tell you that Pieathalon 7 almost didn’t happen–and not just because it almost slipped my mind (if you look at the event date, it keeps getting pushed later and later).

Pieathalon 7 almost didn’t happen because I was apprehensive to contact everyone in light of all this Corona bullshit. Would anyone want to bake a random pie? Were people too busy taking care of kids? Were they unemployed? Were they just in a somber mood?

Well, I was so happy when the response was a resounding “HELL YES WE WANT TO MAKE PIE!!!”

So away we go!

This recipe, from the Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library (which I think I own…?) was submitted by the lovely folks over at the Book Club Cookbook.

I was happy that this was my assigned pie just for the little olive-pepper garnishes in the photo:

SO FESTIVE!

I decided to cut the recipe in half because I’m cooking for just Mr. Sauce, Esq. and me (and he never eats leftovers).

This is my altered recipe:

  • 1/2 pound ground beef (I wasn’t gonna buy ground pork as well)
  • sliced small onion
  • Red bell pepper (I decided to add this to the mix because it was used in the fetching garnish in the original picture)
  • 1 1/2 cup tomato juice
  • 1/2 of a 11 oz can of corn
  • 1 tbsp chili powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/8 tsp pepper

I am surprised at how much chili powder the recipe called for–typically these things are so devoid of spice.

I did think it was odd that, since this was supposed to be “mexican,” that there wasn’t any cheese involved. I don’t know how/when it’d be in there. But I still felt like cheese was missing.

Cornmeal Pastry:

  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 2 tbsp corn meal
  • salt
  • 2 tbsp PLUS 2 tsp shortening
  • 1 1/2 tbsp cold water

All told, this was a very easy recipe. BUT! the dough was horrible to work with. See:

I am going to blame this on Betty Crocker, because I have had success with other pie dough recipes (including a Betty Crocker one!).

So, the cornmeal pastry didn’t end up pretty. Actually it was a bit of a hot mess:

Grapefruit and avocado salad in the lower corner (Just like Betty Crocker!)

But it in the end, it did the job.

As always, I remain committed to recreating the dish as closely as possible. in the original photo the pepper garnishes look like AIDS ribbons. With olives.

An aside: Are the AIDS ribbons still a thing? It’s been so long since I’ve seen a red carpet that I don’t even remember anymore.

Mine are less ribbon and more pretzel, but I gave it a shot.

Overall the Sombrero Pie was okay. Not bad, not great. But I liked that it was rather easy, even if the dough was a bitch to roll out. The crust ended up being the best part of the dish–a little crispy and corny–much like a giant tortilla chip.

Margot appreciated the warm spot left by the casserole dish during my photo session.

She’s so cute and weird.

The Pieathalon continues! Now visit all the other bloggers and see what they all baked.

Published by

yinzerella

14 thoughts on “PIEATHALON 7: Betty Crocker’s Sombrero Pie (1971)”

  1. I LOVE PIEATHALON – thanks so much for doing it this year, of all years. This must continue forever.

    It has so lifted my spirits to make a teeny tiny dinky little pink pie just for me myself and I. We need this kind of stuff to get through this ongoing shitstorm. More pies!

    When I saw the card and read the ingredients I thought the Sombrero Pie sounded like a winner. I do like the open wound type top. Very appetising unless you are some kind of surgeon just home from a long shift. The twiddly olive bits are genius. You are a GOOD SPORT.

    Thanks for all your posts, they always make me laugh here in London – Jenny xx

  3. I looked in my grandmother’s old Betty Crocker recipe book and there was no Sombrero Pie. There WAS a “Tamale Pie” recipe with essentially the same ingredients (canned tomatoes instead of tomato juice) but the topping was cooked cornmeal that was poured over the top “in three long ribbons” that you baked.

  5. I also thought it would be sobrero shaped! Glad that crust worked out in the end and sooooo glad you decided to Pieathalon this year. After all, isn’t virtual pie baking the best sort of social distancing? xx

  6. Sombrero pie is brilliant pandemic pantry cooking w canned chili sub. Last centuryā€™s garnishes were charming and whimsical without contrivance. Pieathalon looks delicious

  7. Looks good! You did a wonderful job with what looks like a VERY short crust. Love that Margot’s being a “warmthertunist.” : )

  10. You know, I haven’t seen AIDS ribbons in a while, and I remember seeing them strategically place red light bulbs in downtown office building windows (in such LGBT-friendly cities as early-2000s Houston, no less!).
    I might try encasing a casserole in that cornmeal crust. And thank you for organizing the Pieathlon!

  11. When I saw the name, I was convinced that it was something that was going to be baked in the shape of a sombrero! Ah well, maybe someone will find that recipe for the next Pieathalon. šŸ˜‰

    Thanks for doing Pieathalon again! It was a nice break from the rest of this year!

  12. Yes, the amount of chili powder is kind of shocking for this time period! I’d have expected a half-batch of this to have a half-teaspoon of chili powder at most.

    Thanks for doing the Pieathalon again this year! I actually spotted my recipe to submit in July and had it scanned and waiting in the hopes that this would still be on.

  13. So glad Pieathalon got the green light this year. I’m thinking that everyone wanted to participate, because it’s a symbol of the normalcy we all yearn to get back to. So yay for pie! Your pie looked good, but I think you should throw caution to the wind and try making it again, with lots of cheese!

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