Chess pies without the chess

I had it all planned out. I was going to make from scratch, pumpkin pie (from an actual pumpkin, no can) during Thanksgiving weekend. I walked into my mother in law's house for the weekend and there were two pies on her stove cooling (chocolate pecan and pear cranberry). Shoot! These pies weren't even for Thanksgiving dinner. They were for Friday. Someone else was making the pies for Thursday. The last thing we needed was more pie. I didn't bake a thing that weekend.

So I changed my plan for November. Instead of making pumpkin pie, I was going to make chess pie. First off, I did some research and no one really knows why they call this chess pie. What I can tell you is it is a southern style, custard pie. It has corn meal in it which is unique.

Why chess pie? I saw it in a cookbook and never heard of it before. Plus it has the word chess it in. I live in a fanatical chess area of the United States. The chess hall of fame is in this city. All kids play chess here it seems. You look at the trophy case in their elementary school and its filled with chess trophies. Seriously. To give an analogy, I feel like I live in the Green Bay Packers Lambeau Field of chess. Thus it is no surprise that both my kids play chess. I take them to a club nearly every Friday. I'm even learning how to play. My first grader beats me, but you have to start somewhere. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to try out the recipe and at some point make it for a tournament. 

Why two? A name like chess pie...it just seemed natural to not just make one pie, but two! One dark (chocolate) and one light (lemon) colored to represent those black and white chess pieces. 

On to how:
I used my typical Barefoot Contessa's Perfect Pie Crust.

Bill Clinton's Lemon Chess Pie was the first pie I made today. It took a lot of lemons to get 3 tbsp of zest, but otherwise the recipe was easy. I don't know if the recipe is really Bill Clinton's, but it looked yummy, so I gave it a go. It's important to bake it until it was golden brown on top and not go with the baking time on the recipe.

The Chocolate Chess Pie recipe was also easy to follow. I had one snafu though. I poured the filling in and then realized, I forgot to put the milk in it! To try to fix it, I poured out half the filling, mixed in the milk and poured it back in the shell.

I was worried. Custard pies are my enemy. I have had several runny pies. Both recipes called for 35-45 minutes. I baked both longer, but unfortunately, I still had issues. It was runny. It might have been my milk issue, but I wasn't sure.

Even though the chocolate pie was runny, it was delicious. It was like homemade dark chocolate pudding with a crunchy brownie-like top. An hour in the refrigerator helped tremendously. It still was a little runny, but a huge improvement.

The lemon chess pie turned out great and tasted like a giant lemon bar. It was good with either whipped cream or just plain.

Now Bake That! and that!

New Year's Apple Pie

Most years we host Rosh Hashana dinner. I decided this year to make an apple pie and a chocolate banana cream pie. For those who don't know the holiday, it's Jewish New Year and one of the things we do is apple and honey. 

For the apple pie, I used Barefoot Contessa's Deep Dish Apple Pie and Perfect Pie Crust. Once again, I had the same issue as last month, not enough filling. I should've bought more Granny Smith apples! I decided to go back into my fridge and grab whatever apples I had on hand, honeycrisp apples. It seemed like a cute idea with the whole apple and honey theme. However, I overdid and then had TOO much filling. I grabbed my tiny pie pan. Unfortunately I didn't have enough extra crust to make a top crust so I grabbed my Better Home and Garden's New Cook Book and used the topping from the Apple crisp recipe. The apple pies were...okay. I won't ever use honeycrisp again. The pie filling was sorta like chunky applesauce. I still served it, but with lots of ice cream.

The banana cream pie recipe from Sugarcrafter's  blog. I picked it because it had whole pieces of banana and not banana flavored pudding or something. I like bananas, just not artificially flavored banana. Though I baked it as directed, this pie never set up for me. The idea of runny chocolate pie was, to say it nicely, unappetizing. I tried to make it better by mixing the filling all up and then popping it in the refrigerator to set. But now it looked like brown liquid in a pie shell. Ew. 

I was so disappointed since this has happened several times to me with cream pies. I didn't even bother serving it at dinner. Instead, I made some magic brownies and people adored them. Whew!

I also made round challah bread. However, I will feature that recipe another time.

Now Bake That! (but only with granny smith apples) 
and that! 
and that!


 




 

Just Peachy

Remember that song? Peaches by The Presidents of the United States of America? The chorus goes: Millions of peaches. Peaches for me. Millions of peaches. Peaches for free. That was in my head as I made this pie for sunny August. 

Last month I tried a different pie crust recipe from Cook's Illustrated (their foolproof pie crust recipe). After being fully annoyed with all the millions of steps for that recipe, I went back to Barefoot Contessa's Perfect Pie Crust. It works for me and tastes wonderful. For the peach pie filling, I used the recipe from another blog Joy of Baking. 

What I was trying new this month was to make a star pattern with the top crust. I did it by cutting the shapes while it was still folded in half with a diamond shaped cookie cutter. It stretched all weird. My other issue? There wasn't enough filling and sunk and oozes on the top. However, the pie tasted wonderful. Plus ice cream covers up the messy crust and no one is the wiser. Just peachy!

Now Bake That!

Black and blue birthday

No,no. I didn't beat up my husband and made him black and blue on his birthday. Since my husband doesn't care much for cake, I offered to let him pick the pie of the month. He picked blackberry and blueberry. Happy Birthday to Dave!

Instead of lattice style I wanted to try a hole cut out and then did slits to make a sunshine design. It was fun!

I used the same Barefoot Contessa Perfect Pie Crust Recipe.
The pie filling I used All Recipes Again: Blackberry and Blueberry Pie
Comments:
The new thing I tried this time was to protect the crust edges, instead of cutting strips of foil and arching it around the crust, I did something else. I read to make two large sheets of foil and make a + and lay it on the counter. Place the pie in the center and then wrap the edges of the pie from the outside. It was a lot easier and they didn't fall off!

As you can see, it leaked. I was nervous that if I undercooked and under-filled it, it would be runny and/or sunk in the center. Anxiety has its price with baking. The pie was wonderful (though I still think my strawberry rhubarb is still the best so far!).

Now Bake That!

Bebop-A-Reebop Rhubarb Pie

My husband tells this joke (he says his grandpa said it): Do you think the rain will spoil the rhubarb? Not if it comes in cans. I don't get why that's funny. Then I googled it and found out its just a movie line. Um, still don't get it.

I love rhubarb crisp. Surprisingly, I had never had rhubarb pie. I was adamant that I needed to make one while it was in season. It makes me think of Garrison Keilor's Prairie Home Companion's bebop a reebop rhubarb pie. (I'm a Minnesota Native).

Recipe was from the All Recipes website: 
Rhubarb and Strawberry Pie

I also used Barefoot Contessa's Perfect Pie Crust recipe.

Comments: 
I didn't feel comfortable with the lattice, my dough kept ripping. I cheated. I just laid layers on top of each other. It's not as pretty, but honestly it didn't matter to anyone but myself.

The trick to using All Recipes is to read the comments. I mean read as many as you can. Thanks to these comments, I let the filling sit on my counter for two hours. Then I baked the pie for 10 minutes longer than the recipe requires. You will not be sorry because:

THE PIE WAS AMAZING!

I'm not kidding. My family ate all of it within 3 days. A record.