National Dessert Day: buttermilk chess pie

Thanks to Twitter, I now know that October 14 is National Dessert Day. The first thing that popped into my head when I saw that tweet was “buttermilk pie”, so that’s what I decided to bake. Hey – any excuse to nom some dessert, right? Here’s the photos from my evening spent slaving over a hot oven. And yes, as if you needed to ask, JR is loving this new “hot for cooking” me. :) Lots of the photos in this post are actually taken by JR, because I was busy rolling out dough and mixing the filling. Happy Dessert Day!

Rose's Perfect Pie Plate in red - a wedding gift. Thanks, McD!

pie crust (made from scratch!)

my kiwi green Counter Art ceramic rolling pin

freshly ground nutmeg

pouring the buttermilk pie filling into the freshly baked pie shell

freshly baked pie cooling on a wire rack, with a *little* spillover. oops!

slice of buttermilk chess pie, warm from the oven. we burned our tongues! DELICIOUS!!!

Update: my friend @smcbride asked “What does the chess mean?” Good question! I didn’t know either, but here’s what wikipedia says about chess pie:

Chess pie is a particularly sugary dessert characteristic of Southern U.S. cuisine. According to James Beard’s American Cookery (1972) chess pie was brought from England originally, and was found in New England as well as Virginia. Recipes vary, but are generally similar in that they call for the preparation of a single crust and a filling composed of eggs, butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla. What sets chess pie apart from many other custard pies is the addition of corn meal.

Naming origins: The pie seems to have no relation to the game of chess, which has led to much speculation as to the origin of this term. Some theorize that the name of the pie traces back to its ancestral England, where the dessert perhaps evolved from a similar cheese tart, in which the archaic “cheese” was used to describe pies of the same consistency even without that particular ingredient present in the recipe. In North Carolina and Old Salem Cookery, Elizabeth Hedgecock Sparks argues that the name derives from Chester. One folk etymology suggests that it was referred to as “just pie”, which soon shortened to “jus’ pie” or “jess’ pie,” and then corrupted to “chess pie”. The ingredients support this etymology, as chess pie is identical to the custard “base” for other custard pies that have an additional dominant flavor, such as pecan pie and chocolate custard pie. There is also a theory that the word “chess” pie comes from the piece of furniture that was common in the early South called a pie chest or pie safe. Chess pie may have been called chest pie at first because it held up well in the pie chest.

Thanks, Sean, for helping me learn something I didn’t even know I didn’t know!

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