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½ cup milk or evaporated milk (I prefer evaporated milk)

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

One 9-inch unbaked pie shell (see About Pie Crusts, frontmatter)

1. Preheat the oven to 325° F. Whisk together the sugar, flour, nutmeg, and salt in a medium-size bowl. Whisk the eggs in, one by one, then mix in the molasses, milk, melted butter, and vanilla.

2. Pour the filling into the pie shell, slide the pie onto a baking sheet, and bake on the middle oven shelf for about 1 hour or until puffed and a cake tester inserted halfway between the edge and the center comes out clean.

3. If you want to serve the pie warm, cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes. Or, if you prefer, cool the pie to room temperature before serving. Note: The filling will fall somewhat but this is as it should be. Cut the pieces small and serve as is or topped by a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a generous ladling of whipped cream.

LEMON CHESS PIE

MAKES 8 SERVINGS

Next to brown sugar pie, this is my favorite chess pie. There are several theories as to how these pies came by their name. Some say that “chess” is a corruption of “chest,” meaning that these pies were so rich they could be stored in chests at room temperature. Others offer a different explanation: It seems that long ago when a good plantation cook was asked what she was making, she replied, “Jes pie,” which over time became “chess.” Still others insist that “chess” derives from “cheese,” as in the English lemon “cheese” (or curd). According to food historian Karen Hess, “cheese” was spelled “chese” in seventeenth-century England. In her historical notes and commentaries for the 1984 facsimile edition of Mary Randolph’s Virginia House-wife (1824), Hess writes: “Since the archaic spellings of cheese often had but one ’e’ we have the answer to the riddle of the name of that southern favorite ‘Chess Pie.’”

When I lived in New York, I baked dozens of lemon chess pies for the annual Gramercy Park fund-raiser and they sold as fast as I could unpack them. From that experience, I learned to buzz up the filling in the food processor. I even grate the lemon zest by processor. Here’s how: Strip the zest from the lemons with a swivel-bladed vegetable peeler, then churn it with the sugar to just the right texture. I next pulse in the lemon juice, then the eggs one by one. Finally, I drizzle the melted butter down the feed tube with the motor running. That’s all there is to it.

1½ cups sugar

Finely grated zest of 3 large lemons

Juice of 3 large lemons

5 large eggs

1/3 cup butter, melted

One 9-inch unbaked pie shell (see About Pie Crusts, frontmatter)

1. Preheat the oven to 325° F.

2. Combine the sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice in a medium-size bowl. Beat the eggs in, one by one, then add the butter in a slow stream, beating all the while.

3. Pour the filling into the pie shell, slide the pie onto a baking sheet, and bake on the middle oven shelf for about 45 minutes or until puffed and delicately browned.

4. Transfer the pie to a wire rack and cool to room temperature before cutting; don’t fret when the filling begins to fall. This is what gives chess pies their silken texture. Cut into slim wedges and serve.

KENTUCKY CHESS PIE

MAKES 8 SERVINGS

It’s said that to sample Kentucky’s best chess pie, you must head for The Old Talbott Tavern in Bardstown. I did exactly that some years ago. And although I’d only eaten two or three other versions of the famous Kentucky Chess Pie, the tavern’s won hands down. What follows is my stab at the tavern’s secret recipe, and I think it comes pretty close. In business since 1779, the Talbott Tavern has hosted such VIPs as Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Boone, Stephen Collins Foster, John James Audubon, even the exiled King Louis Philippe of France, who settled in with his entire entourage. The second-floor murals were painted by the young royal, then later shot up by Jesse James. Those murals suffered far greater damage early in 1998 when fire ravaged the inn. Shuttered for nearly two years,