Crack Pie is a sweet treat created by Christina Tosi, chef at Momofuku Milk Bar in NYC. It gained popularity after being featured on TV by Anderson Cooper and Martha Stewart, but its origins and ingredients are disputed. Some say it is similar to a Southern chess pie.
Crack pie is a sweet treat whose creation is generally credited to Christina Tosi, chef at David Chang’s Momofuku Milk Bar restaurant in New York City. She claims to have invented the pie at another local restaurant, WD-50, as part of a pie-making experiment. The name is presumably based on its addictive quality, like the popular street narcotic, and not its ingredients or appearance.
The pie surged in popularity in December of 2009, when CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper announced on the live American talk show Live with Regis and Kelly that he had gotten hooked on crack pie and enjoyed it while watching one of his favorite TV shows science fiction. He said he didn’t know its ingredients, only that it was very sweet and addictive. He also revealed the name of the restaurant it came from, which was also where it was cooked.
Although Cooper’s rave review is largely attributed to the cake’s success, internationally acclaimed chef and author Martha Stewart had featured the cake on her television cooking show nearly a year earlier. The show featured a story of the Milk Bar Momofuku restaurant and Chang and Tosi made the cake on the show. Stewart later recreated the dessert on her show and passed on step-by-step instructions for viewers so they could duplicate it at home.
That same year, New York magazine named crack pie the best pie of the year. The supposedly original recipe has been published in newspapers and magazines around the world, and many versions have been scattered across the Internet. Reviews of home bakers’ attempts to recreate the confection have been mixed, though most have reported disappointing results in both appearance and taste.
Reports that crack pie was just another version of a very ancient Southern pie called a chess pie quickly spread. The ingredients for the chess pie filling are very similar: brown sugar, white sugar, cornmeal, eggs, and butter. What seems to make the tart unique is the oatmeal cookie base that is placed on top of the unbaked crust in the bottom of the pie pan before filling is added. Since the only noticeable crack in the cake can sometimes be found in the caramelized surface of the cake when it cools, the name is still thought to refer to its fans’ obsession with it.
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