Recipe

October 1, 2024

Chess Pie

Recipe: Stephen Colbert and Evie McGee Colbert

“This is my grandmother McGee’s recipe and one of the ones that my mom and I discovered when we found my grandmother’s long-lost recipe box. Chess pie is a classic Southern pie and this receipt is probably well over a hundred years old, but it certainly holds up.” – Evie McGee Colbert

Ingredients

  • 1 unbaked 9″ pie shell, homemade or store-bought
  • 1 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1⁄2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1⁄4 cup fine cornmeal
  • 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 tbsp sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

Directions

Yield: Makes 8 Servings

  1. Heat the oven to 375°F with a rack in the lowest position. Stir the two sugars, cornmeal, and flour together in a large bowl just to break up any clumps of flour. (No one likes a lumpy chess pie.) It’s helpful if the bowl has a handle.
  2. Beat the eggs well in a small bowl, then beat in the condensed milk and vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and beat with a whisk or handheld mixer until very smooth. Beat in the melted butter until you can’t see even a trace of it.
  3. Place the pie shell on a baking sheet, then pull out the lowest oven rack, set the baking sheet with the pie shell on the rack, and carefully pour the filling into the shell. Bake until the top of the pie is deep golden brown and the center is only a little bit jiggly, about 35 minutes. Cool for at least 2 hours before serving.
Source:

From Does This Taste Funny?: Recipes Our Family Loves by Stephen Colbert and Evie McGee Colbert. (c) 2024 by the authors and reprinted with permission of Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC