Actually, I recant. That evaporated milk is rather high in fat. The shoofly is rather high in fat, but relatively less than the Chess Pie considering lipids. So, it is a reduced fat pie.
I’m with Julia on the matter of butter. Many people have a very skewed, and frankly incorrect, reckoning of food. Very unhealthy, very unnatuiral. No evolutionary consideration.
uh huh
well, you know. had to try.
anyway, I think the 1/2 and 1/2 mixture will work a lot better… if not, oh well, it only cost me two store-bought pie crusts. (and a broken heart.) 
Splenda does not caramelize. The only sugar-free sweetener that does, is “Diabetisweet” which is made from sugar alcohols and is usually found in the diabetic aisle of the drugstore (not usually in the baking aisle of the grocery store).
Flavor-wise Diabetisweet is wonderful stuff, but it doesn’t sit well with everyone digestion-wise. And it is expensive.
Alright, I tried the 1/2 sugar and 1/2 Splenda mix, and while it’s much improved (edible!), it’s still not something I’d serve to anyone else.
I think the main problem now is that the Splenda taste is too overwhelming. I think if I left the sugar at 3/4 cup and added only 1/4 or 1/3 cup of Splenda, it would taste about right, but I don’t know where that would leave the texture… probably about the same as it was this time (which was, admittedly, not quite right but not intolerable), because I really don’t think Splenda contributes any texture at all to the pie.
Might be a while before I try again, though, because next time, I’ll probably make an actual pie crust and I don’t like doing that, but the store-bought ones are made with lard and they’re too salty.
But the texture is turning out okay? It’s just the taste that’s off?
When Splenda first came out and was the only (widely available) sugar substitute you could bake with, I substituted all of the sugar in a loaf of cranberry bread with Splenda… yep, you could have used that sucker as a football and not lost a single crumb from it. Didn’t know about the not substituting for all the sugar deal at the time.
There’s a rule about substituting margarine for butter. The fat to water ratios are different so it’s not always a 1:1 conversion. I can’t find which cookbook I read it in right now, and I don’t remember exactly what it was. How is Smart Balance the same as/different from “margarine”?