Water Pie Recipe from The Great Depression
A Great Depression-era recipe, this humble Water Pie uses the bare minimum to create a deliciously creamy, buttery dessert that proves resourcefulness can still taste like comfort. With a flaky crust, a rich brown sugar filling, and a crisp, caramelized top, you won’t believe one of the main ingredients is water!
A Quick Look At The Recipe
- Recipe Name: Water Pie
- Serves: 4
- Main Ingredients: 9-inch deep-dish pie crust, unbaked, water, all-purpose flour, sugar, vanilla extract, butter, cut into 5 pieces
- Why You'll Love It: Water Pie is a depression era recipe that turns bare bones ingredients into a delicious buttery pie!
A Sweet Legacy from the Depression Era
Just like my Chocolate Depression Cake, this water pie is one of those magical recipes born in the Depression era, when cooks with little to nothing figured out how to make delicious dishes for those they love during hard times.
This particular recipe was passed on to me by Kay West, and I published it in my third cookbook, Sweetness. It originally belonged to Kay’s grandmother, a remarkable woman who cooked three meals a day from scratch for her family of ten. During harder times, she created this recipe so her family could still enjoy a little sweetness, no matter how hard their days were. These recipes are such a special treasure to us!
I think you’ll really enjoy how simple this water pie is. It has a creamy, buttery taste, similar to a buttermilk pie or old-fashioned butter cookies. Half the thrill will be telling your family the name and that the main ingredient is water!
Ingredients
You know when a recipe was created to make something out of nothing, it’s going to be simple on the ingredients!
- A deep-dish pie crust (see tips for success at the bottom of this post).
- Water
- Sugar
- Flour
- Butter
- Vanilla extract
Tips for the Best Water Pie
- I use an unbaked Pillsbury all-vegetable frozen deep-dish pie crust for this recipe. I suggest a store-bought deep-dish pie crust because homemade pie crusts vary in depth and may not cook through in the prescribed time.
- Before you begin making this pie, tear off a piece of foil large enough to cover your pie dish. Cut an X in the center and peel back the X. This makes it quick and easy to cover your pie if the edges start to darken, and it helps you keep heat in during baking!
- The pie will be bubbly and could be watery in some spots when you pull it out of the oven. It will gel fully as it cools. Just let the pie cool completely, then cover and refrigerate until chilled before cutting.
How to Make Depression-Era Water Pie
1. Pour Water Into Pie Crust Dish
Begin by pouring water into your unbaked pie crust deep-dish. Tap water is just fine!
2. Add Flour & Sugar
Next, in a small mixing bowl, stir together your flour and sugar.
Sprinkle the flour mixture over your water in the pie shell. The original recipe called for doing this with a spoon, so I’m showing you that way, but I usually just use my hand to sprinkle it because I feel like I can get it more evenly that way.
This is our water with flour/sugar sprinkled over. Don’t stir!
3. Add Vanilla & Butter
Drizzle vanilla over this (don’t stir this either!). Then place pats of butter on top.
4. Bake
Place your pie in the oven at 400°F for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, reduce the temperature to 375°F and cover the edges of the flaky crust if needed to prevent burning. Cook for another 30 minutes after you reduce the temp.
5. Cool & Chill
Remove your pie from the oven. The pie will be very watery in the center – don’t worry, that’s what we want! Let it cool completely, then refrigerate for several hours before cutting.
That’s it. Enjoy this creamy, buttery pie recipe! And if you want to try one of our all-time favorite pairings with this dessert, try this Dirty Dr. Pepper – it’s so tasty!
Storage
You can store leftovers of your water pie in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. Skip the freezer with this one! The delicate filling separates and loses its texture once thawed.
Water Pie from the Great Depression – FAQs
A Sprite pie is basically a modern-day version of the water pie. It became famous in 2020 when TikTok took the world by storm. They both taste very similar, like a delicious sugar cookie. If you’d prefer to make a Sprite pie instead of a water pie, simply substitute the water for 1 can of Sprite. Follow the same instructions and ingredients in the recipe card, and voila, you have yourself a Sprite pie!
The most common water pie mistakes are rushing the cooling process, not mixing the ingredients properly, and baking at the wrong temperature. I know it sounds simple enough, but trust me, these little slip-ups can turn your filling into a soupy mess! Make sure you give your pie enough time to cool, mix everything together thoroughly, and always double-check that your oven is set to the right temperature before popping it in.
You can’t stir a water pie because doing so messes with the chemistry that makes it work. Those unmixed layers actually create a gorgeous, gelatinous custard filling. Give it a stir, and you’ll end up with a watery disaster instead of the silky-smooth filling we’re going for.
Did you give this Water Pie a try? I’d love to hear what you thought! Drop a star rating and leave a comment below to let me know how it turned out for you.
Ingredients
- 1 9-inch deep-dish pie crust unbaked
- 1 ½ cups water
- 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 5 tablespoons butter cut into 5 pieces
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F and set empty pie crust on a baking sheet.1 9-inch deep-dish pie crust
- Pour 1 ½ cups water into the pie crust.1 ½ cups water
- In a small bowl, stir together the flour and sugar. Sprinkle this mixture evenly over the water in the crust. Don't stir.4 tablespoons all-purpose flour, 1 cup sugar
- Drizzle the vanilla over the water in the pie crust. Place pats of butter on top of this.2 teaspoons vanilla extract, 5 tablespoons butter
- Bake for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 375°F and cover the sides of the crust if needed to prevent burning. Continue cooking for an additional 30 minutes.
- Pie will be watery when you pull it out of the oven but will gel as it cools. Allow to cool completely and then cover and place in the fridge until chilled before cutting.
I followed the recipe exactly. It was really good and easy to to make! Even though it was very tasty, there were pockets of inconsistencies in the texture. So, I decided to do an experiment. I used Brown sugar instead of White. In a pan I heated the Water, Sugar, Butter, & Flour and stirred it to get it as mixed as possible. Let it cool to a sauce type texture and added the vanilla and stirred that in. Then I added the mixture to my pie crust and baked, then cooled as the recipe indicates. OMG, I like it this way better.
I was obsessed with the TikTok redbull pie, so used this recipe and subbed out redbull for the water. Turned out great!
Glad you loved it! Thank you for the comment and the rating 🙂
I love this recipe! I have made it a few times and it is amazingly simple, yet delicious. I have played with the recipe and have made a few variations which turned out great. I have used the Readycrust graham, shortbread and chocolate as a quick substitution. They get a little chewy and almost caramelized, but delicious. Most recently, I added a teaspoon packet of instant espresso and 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder. That made a delicious chocolate pie. Thinking of trying brown sugar in place of some or all of the white sugar to see if it might be a caramel or butterscotch flavor. This is a great recipe and so much fun, thank you for posting it!
So glad you love it. Thanks for the suggestions. They are great!
Good ideas! I followed the recipe and it was really good. It created a caramel crust on the bottom. (which was really good) I was thinking of stirring the water, sugar, & vanilla (maybe with heat) prior to putting it in the crust. Ever try that? I keep thinking the instructions must have a reason for saying not to stir……… But I’m curious lol
DOES THE FLOUR HAVE TO BE ALL PURPOSE
That’s what I used but you could try something different. If you try something different please let me know how it worked 🙂
I used self-rising and it was perfect! Delicious recipe!
Thank you kindly Linda. Appreciate your comment and rating 🙂
I also added finely crushed pecans to mine.
YUM!
Can this be made gluten-free?
I have not made it gluten free so I can’t let you know how it would turn out but if you make it that way please let us know how it goes.
The only ingredients are water flour sugar… no this can’t be made gluten free.
I haven’t tried it with gluten free flour but if anyone does, let me know how it goes.
Just did a gluten free bagged pie crust mix for a pie crust last night – i couldnt even get it off the counter, crumbled to dust – i made my standard hot water recipe instead – I love this bizarre recipe. I will try it sometime
There’s gluten-free AP flour on the market. Bob’s Red Mill brand.
It absolutely could!! Use a gf pie crust, and instead of flour, use 3 Tablespoons of cornstarch.
If you make your own pie crust, yes; Bob’s Red Mill has a gluten-free flour on the market that should be available everywhere. I know it’s in Walmart and Kroger.
Hello! I made this last night. I followed the recipe exactly as written and even weighed my ingredients to ensure proper baking. However, the pie just turned out super runny (I refrigerated overnight, and it’s still liquid). There is some hardened butter on top, as the recipe said don’t stir at any point. And the rest sorta congealed into a watery goo. It’s unsliceable. But the flavor is good! Minus the solid butter on top. What did I do wrong? It looked exactly like the photos throughout the whole process. Thank you!
Sounds like it didn’t get hot enough. Since ovens vary in how they hold temperatures that is my guess but it’s always hard to say since I can’t be there to see what happened. I would giver her another shot and either bake longer or at a slightly higher temp.
I froze my butter then grated it with a cheese grater so that I could sprinkle it and cover the entire top of the pie and I got a more even browning and it came out fantastic. When I did it with a large pots of butter I too ended up with weird little spots that didn’t quite look the same and didn’t have the same texture as everything else in the pie.
Just wondering if you have modified this recipe for mini shells
I did it, you’ll need 2 dozen shells, and I used the exact temperatures, but halved the timings, so 1 minutes stead of 30