Mr. Brickley’s Lemon Pecan Chess Pie

Eat pie, love life!

Mr. Brickley, a dear family friend, had a delightful old home that smelled of fragrant pipe tobacco and roses. It also had a unique sound, as dozens of antique clocks chimed melodious tunes throughout the large house. A favorite of our family, he was a great storyteller. During one of my last visits with him, I asked him if he had a favorite pie. Confined to his bed, he smiled as he spoke of a lemon nut pie his mother used to bake. I hurried home and searched through my vintage recipes to find a baked lemon chess pie recipe. I knew cancer could weaken taste buds, so I added extra quantities of fresh lemon juice and pecans to his pie and brought it on my next visit.

When I fed him his first bite, a small tear ran down his sweet, aged face, as he said he hadn’t tasted “his mother’s pie” for eighty years! I made the pie for him for three more weeks, as it was came to be the only thing he could eat. The nurse later told me he died after his last bite of “mother’s lemon pie” while recalling his happy boyhood days during the 1900s. It wasn’t long after that experience that I decided I had to make pies for a living.

Mr. Brickley and his pie led me to understand the true healing power of food, and especially pies, to a person’s soul. Pies can transport folks back home to Mother, to the warmth of her hugs and kitchen stove, to a simpler time of love, innocence, and childhood.

“Nothing, nothing compares to the loveliness of love. Give all to love….”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Recommended: Flaky Classic Piecrust, frozen (page 1)

  1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
  2. Line a frozen piecrust with one layer of aluminum foil and fill with one layer of uncooked pasta.
  3. Bake in the oven until the bottom of the crust is partially baked, approximately 8 minutes.
  4. Carefully lift the pasta-filled foil from the crust. Let the crust cool.
  5. Continue with the directions for the filling below.

Filling

¼ cup butter, melted

1½ cups brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

1½ tablespoons flour

½ cup heavy cream

¾ cup chopped pecans, toasted

Zest of 2 lemons

Juice of 2 lemons

  1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the butter, brown sugar, salt, and eggs. Mix by hand until the ingredients are combined.
  3. Add the flour, cream, pecans, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Continue to mix by hand until the ingredients are well mixed.
  4. Pour into the piecrust and bake for 45–50 minutes, or until the pie is set in the middle.

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Lemon Glaze

¼ cup confectioners’ sugar

Zest of ½ lemon

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

¼ teaspoon lemon extract

¼ cup pecans, toasted and chopped

  1. Mix the confectioners’ sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and lemon extract in a medium bowl with a whisk until smooth.
  2. While the pie is still warm, drizzle lemon glaze over its entire surface. Sprinkle with chopped pecans.

art Chess and nut pies freeze very well.

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Mom McComb’s Mocha Hot Chocolate Pie

Eat pie, serve love in all you do!

Growing up in Michigan, we enjoyed plenty of snowy days and all the fun activities that went along with them. Ice skating was a family favorite. The park at the end of our street was transformed into an ice rink in the winter, complete with a warming house, outdoor lights, and music underneath large sycamore trees. After school my siblings and I would race home, put on our ice skates, and skate down the ice-covered street to the rink. We would meet our friends there to play crack the whip, pretend to be Dorothy Hamill, and ice dance to the music all afternoon.

On Saturdays, after a full day of skating and numb from the cold, we would anxiously skate home, hoping to be met not only by the warmth of the house, but also by the fragrant smell of chocolate. My mother’s steaming, rich hot chocolate was extra special, made with cream, cinnamon, and a splash of her leftover morning coffee, topped by a large marshmallow and served in antique teacups and saucers. I remember our little hands wrapped around our cups, tipping the marshmallow into the pond of chocolate bliss with our tongues. I hope you feel the same sense of love while enjoying this most delicious, cold version created as a pie!

Recommended: Flaky Classic Piecrust (page 1)

  1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
  2. Line a frozen piecrust with one layer of aluminum foil and fill with one layer of uncooked pasta.
  3. Bake in the oven until the bottom of the crust is light brown, approximately 25 minutes.
  4. Carefully lift the foil from the crust. Let the crust cool.

Filling

2½ cups whole milk

½ cup half-and-half

1¼ cups sugar

4 egg yolks

1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted

1/3 cup Hershey’s cocoa, sifted

½ teaspoon coffee extract OR 1 rounded tablespoon finely ground espresso powder

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

Garnish—Optional

Sweetie-licious Whipped Cream (see recipe on page 8)

Marshmallow cream

Marshmallows

Chocolate shavings or syrup

  1. Mix the milk, half-and-half, sugar, and egg yolks in a medium pan.
  2. Sift together the cornstarch, cocoa, and espresso powder, if using; add to the pan.
  3. Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens. Remove from the heat.
  4. Add the vanilla extract and coffee extract, if using.
  5. Pour the filling into a piecrust, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.
  6. Garnish with Whipped Cream, drizzled marshmallow cream or marshmallows, and chocolate shavings.

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