It’s Official: Sugar Cream is Indiana’s State Pie

By Stephanie Bane
Ball State University
 

January 23rd was National Pie Day, and Indiana celebrated by making Sugar Cream Pie the official Hoosier State Pie, and honoring the late Mr. Duane ‘Wick” Wickersham and his family business in Winchester for manufacturing Wick’s Sugar Cream Pies. Senator Allen Paul, of Richmond, presented the Senate Concurrent Resolution 5 to the State Senate, where it passed with bi-partisan support, as it did later in the House.

The idea for the state pie resolution came from IFA’s Ball State student interns as part of the food expo project in 2008. The interns attended the Senate session with instructor Sheryl Swingley and Susan Haller. The Wickersham family was honored at the session, and presented a sugar cream pie to Governor Daniels after the vote.
 

IFA began documenting this Indiana dessert’s special place on the menus of local bakeries and restaurants in 2007 on the Hoosier Pie Trail, and began looking into the history of the recipe to find its origins. Although a web search turned up the assertion that sugar cream pie had an Amish background, family recipes have been produced that pre-date Amish settlements in the Midwest.

These recipes, which date to the early 1800’s, are from the Quaker settlements in Eastern Indiana. Further research with the Indiana Historical Society indicates that most early Quakers arrived here from North Carolina, where a brown sugar pie is popular in some communities. Our own sugar cream pie variety seems to have originated in Eastern Indiana, and is a beloved mainstay on menus in many locally owned eateries across the state.
Storie’s Restaurant in Greensburg, Nick’s Kitchen in Huntington, and Concannon’s Bakery in Muncie are just a few of IFA’s culinary trail sites that bake traditional versions of sugar cream pie.

Lisa Sparks, of Lisa’s Pies on Rt. 31 in Atlanta has won national awards with her secret sugar cream pie recipe. And of course, Wick’s Pies in Winchester has been growing since 1943 when Duane Wickersham began selling the pies at the Anchor Hocking Glass Factory Canteen. Wick’s now sells their patented sugar cream pie to grocery stores across the Midwest - the best seller from their bakery which produces and sells more that 12 million pies and pie shells per year.
 

The resolution making sugar cream pie the official state pie has more than sentimental significance. The designation has prompted Chicago retailers to consider carrying Wick’s pies, restaurants have ordered the pies for their menus, pie sales are up at local bakeries and restaurants, and inquiries are coming in from as far away as California and Florida. Designating an official Hoosier Pie piques interest from travelers and event planners, it helps create an authentic experience for diners, and it maintains jobs in small town Indiana.

View the Ball State Newscenter story here: http://www.bsu.edu/web/news/hoosierpie/