Name: Lemon Chess Pie
Total time: 6 h
Ingredients: 5 large eggs; 1 3/4 cups (12¼ ounces/347 grams) plus 1 teaspoon sugar; 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest plus 3 tablespoons juice; 2 tablespoons cornmeal; 1/4 teaspoon salt; 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter , melted and cooled slightly; 1 (9-inch) pie shell , chilled (see note)

Why This Recipe Works

A cousin to custard and translucent pies, the chess variety has been around since the 1800s. The pie may make use of everyday ingredients, but its signature crackly cornmeal exterior and rich lemony flavor are far from ordinary. Some lemon chess pie recipes called for as much as a pound of sugar, as many as 16 eggs, and loads of butter. Our modern recipe employed all the traditional mainstays, just in far smaller quantities. After our initial tests, we discovered we did not need both flour and cornmeal in our filling. We opted to replace the flour, which tasted raw, with extra cornmeal. A little lemon juice and lemon zest were all we needed to give the pie plenty of flavor.

Modern technology is often faster, but not always better. Mixing the filling in a food processor aerated the mixture, making the baked filling foamy, so we stuck with a bowl and a whisk.

Before You Begin

Use your favorite pie dough or our Single-Crust Pie Dough (see related recipe). Regular yellow cornmeal (not stone ground) works best here. Make the filling before baking the shell so the cornmeal has time to soften. Adding the filling when the pie shell is still warm reduces the pie’s cooking time slightly.

Instructions

MAKE FILLING Whisk eggs in large bowl until smooth. Slowly whisk in 1¾ cups sugar, lemon zest and juice, cornmeal, and salt until -combined. Whisk in butter.

BAKE CRUST Poke pie shell all over with fork. Refrigerate 40 minutes, then freeze 20 minutes. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Bake shell until small bubbles appear and surface begins to look dry, about 8 minutes. Remove from oven. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees.

BAKE PIE Whisk filling briefly to recombine. Scrape filling into prepared pie shell and bake until surface is light brown and center jiggles slightly when shaken, 35 to 40 minutes. Sprinkle with remaining teaspoon sugar. Cool -completely on wire rack, about 4 hours. Serve. (Pie can be refrigerated, covered with plastic wrap, for 2 days.)