Year of the Pie - Pie #12 Chess Pie

Pie # 12 - Chess Pie

Well, on our search for pies, we ran across a Chess Pie. Hmmm? Wikipedia says this about it. It is in the custard pie family.

It has basic ingredients that are probably in your cubbard right now.

This week I made crust from Betty Crocker's cookbook.
1 C. flour
1/3 C. + 1 T. shortening
1/4 t. salt
2-3 T. cold water (put ice in it)
Mix the flour/salt and shortening with a pastry blender, then sprinkle in the water a T. at a time for the right consistency.
Roll it out.
Put it in your pie plate.

Ingredients for the filling are:
1 lb. of brown sugar
3 T. flour
3 eggs
1 2/3 C. milk
1 t. vanilla
1/4 t. salt
1/2 C. melted butter

Mix brown sugar and flour, add beaten eggs. Add milk, vanilla, salt and melted butter. Beat well. Pour into pie shell. Bake at 400 degress for 40 minutes or until golden brown.

Having never made or EATEN a chess pie, I didn't know exactly how to test for doneness. I started checking around 30 minutes and checked every 10 minutes for by poking it with a cake tester in the middle. Being in the custard family, I treated it like a pumpkin pie. When the cake tester came out clean and the top was brown.....I pulled it out.
Here is a picture of it.

It looks kind of burnt, but in person it just looks 'golden brown'.
This pie has some character, it came out of the oven talking to me with simmering bubbles. The shield kept the crust nice and toasty brown.

This pie recipe came from this book.

It was the Blue Ribbon Chess Pie recipe from Jonesboro, TN.
This pie is heading to church this evening. We will see how it does.
[I gave my husband a little bite of the pie, just to make sure it was edible for the public- he said it tastes similar to Pecan Pie, without the pecans and that it was perfectly fine to serve.]

O.K. So just before church I cut the pie into twelve pieces (my restaurant savvy husband taught me to cut them into twelves). It felt a little soggy in there, so I pulled a piece out to see it and egads, it was only done on the top. The bottom half still needed to finish baking ( I guess ).
So, on this particular pie we three give it 1/2 of a .

40 pies to go.
Until Next Time.