Well, dear friends, if Lloyd decides he wants shoofly pie for breakfast every day, I will provide with alacrity. While Lloyd was at the laundromat (where he goes every Sunday morning even though I know he'd rather be sleeping in), while a steady and petulant cold rain beat down on the neighborhood, I crawled out of bed and made this:
This was the first shoofly I'd made in about ten years, and it had a valuable lesson to teach me. This is a "wet-bottom" shoofly, similar to pudding cake, with a moist-yet-firm top and a sauce-like bottom. Like gingerbreads, shooflies vary greatly in texture from recipe to recipe: there are shooflies with wet, sticky fillings; there are shooflies with dry fillings, suitable for eating with your hands and dunking into coffee; there are probably dozens of variations in between. My stepgrandmother, who died when I was 13, was an ace baker and a fan of the dry shoofly. Hers is my reference point, as it was the first shoofly I'd ever tried. Hers also had a pronounced crumb topping, and a very subtle hint of molasses; I think she divided the sweetener between molasses and brown sugar. With any luck, I'll know for sure soon, as my folks went to visit my aunt, my stepdad's sister, this afternoon and my stepdad said he would ask my aunt if she still has the recipe. Dear friends, I have to get a handle on this compulsion to bake variations on a theme. I should be starting my Christmas cookies, or making a plan for my 2005 egg research, or reactivating my sourdough starters. What the world does not need is six different shooflies, straight from my oven.
On the other hand, maybe it does. 
This particular pie, the one I made this morning, comes from The Pie and Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum, who got the recipe from Pennsylvania food historian William Woys Weaver. Some shoofly recipes suggest replacing part of the molasses with brown sugar, to cut down on the molasses-y intensity, but this recipe goes in the other direction, actually boosting the dark acidity of the pie with a cup of coffee. (The recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of powdered espresso dissolved in 3/4 cup boiling water, but you can also use regular, strong coffee.) The pie itself is a doddle to prepare: roll out your crust (use the crust recipe of your choice, and really, if you are a fan of the storebought crust, then by all means, use it here), line your 9-inch pie plate, stick it in the fridge or the freezer to chill. While it is chilling, heat your oven to 425 degrees (Gas Mark 7 for those of you across the pond), move your oven rack to its lowest position, put a baking sheet on the rack and let the oven heat for 20 minutes. While the oven heats and the pastry chills, make your coffee and set it aside until it is warm (not boiling, not cold). Make a streusel with 1 1/4 cups flour (Rose specifies bleached all-purpose flour, but I used unbleached pastry flour instead; unbleached all-purpose would also probably work, although your pie might be a little denser), 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg and 1 stick (4 oz.) butter. To make the streusel, combine the dry ingredients until well-blended, then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, two butter knives or your fingertips (I like the fingertip method myself). Take the pie shell from the fridge or freezer and pour the streusel into the pie shell. Make sure the streusel is evenly distributed in the shell. Pour your coffee into a medium mixing bowl, add 1 tsp. baking soda, stir it in and add 3/4 cup unsulfured molasses (either "light" or "full-flavored" will work; since I don't believe in half-measures with this pie, I used the strong stuff). Pour the coffee and molasses mixture over the streusel. Some of the crumbs will sink; others will float to the surface. Put the pie on the preheated baking sheet in the oven and bake for 15 minutes; check the pie and cover the edges with a foil ring if it looks like they are getting too dark. Turn the oven down to 350 degrees (Gas Mark 4) and bake for an additional 30 minutes.
As with all pies, it is best not to eat this right out of the oven, but unlike fruit pies or custard pies, you don't have to let this one cool down all the way before you eat it. You can eat this while it's still warm. In fact, I would urge you to go bake this pie as soon as possible, just so you can eat it, warm, for breakfast.