Chess Pie for the Holidays

Chess Pie

Is there anything that says home or the holidays more than pie? Well, maybe a few other things like a fresh baked ham, Christmas trees covered in lights, and the smell of holiday scented candles burning around the house. I love the holidays. As the count down to the New Year begins, I would like to share my family’s favorite holiday pie recipe with you. 

Families have their own traditional deserts that say the holidays are here. Those dishes are the taste of tradition. Often, family recipes are closely guarded secrets locked away in the minds grandmothers and great aunts. Sometimes they are written down and sometimes altered depending on the availability of certain products or using new products. The important thing is that the dish taste like it always did or at least how people remember it.
When I was a young girl I got my great grandmother’s Chess Pie recipe. She didn’t have it written down and the recipe she gave me was from memory. Luckily, the ingredients in chess pie are pretty basic. Even so the recipe from memory was not quite right. My great grandmother never did measure much. Many of the recipes she gave me called for "heaping tablespoons" and you had to use a specific spoon. 
Over the years I have monkeyed with the recipe trying to get it to taste the way my mom remembers it.  This recipe is as close as I’ve gotten to the original taste. My mom requests chess pie for her birthday and often on the holidays. Some years it's been good and some years my chess pie was interesting if nothing else.  Since I have made chess pie for the holidays most of my life, it only seems like Christmas to me if we have a chess pie. 

Chess Pie

Ingredients

Chess Pie Ingredients

1 Stick of Butter (1/2 a cup), softened1 Cup of Sugar3 Eggs1 Can of Evaporated Milk1 Tablespoon of Flour1 Teaspoon of Vanilla*Dash of Salt (if using unsalted butter)1 Unbaked Pie Shell.

Directions

Preheat oven at 350 degrees. 

Poke Pie Shell with Fork

Put your pie shell in a pie plate. Use a fork to poke some holes in piecrust.
Cream 1 stick of butter and 1 cup of sugar together. Beat 3 eggs and mix into butter and sugar.
Stir in flour, evaporated milk, and vanilla. Mix well.  Pour mixture into the unbaked pie shell. Place the pie on a cookie sheet to bake in case there is runoff.
Bake at 350 degrees until custard is set – about one hour.  Enjoy! I hope you have all had a happy holiday and I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year! See you all in 2014!