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!

Lemon on the run

I screwed up. Remember my New Year's resolution? To make one pie a month? I missed March. I can give excuses like I spent my March making cake pops, etc. Every time I feel guilty about missing March's pie I think of the following:

We went to Destin, Florida for spring break. Sometimes pie making takes a back seat. 

On to April.
One of my favorite pies is lemon meringue so I thought I would give it a go.
I used a web recipe: Ultimate Lemon Meringue Pie

My pie looks awesome. However, it was a perfect example of a trip to lemon meringue pie hell. First it was weepy (the meringue was wet). The other issue was the filling was runny. Super runny. It was like lemon soup! 

Our solution was to freeze it, but I felt frustrated since it took up so much time. The good news was my crust was improving! 

Now Bake That! 
(and then comment with tips to help me...)