Recipe: Nut Tree Chess Pie (Nut Tree Restaurant)

NUT TREE CHESS PIE
Source: Nut Tree Remembered: The Cookbook by Tara Baumann, Jim Moehrke, Roy Moehrke, 1997 (Vacaville Museum, CA - ordering info: 707-447-4513)

This Nut Tree classic dessert is a great example of a recipe that originated with a satisfied customer who wanted to help the young business. Chess Pies were popular mail order items in the 1940s, and were shipped all over the world. An early menu described it as "A deliciously rich pie of walnuts and raisins, a California confection."

1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
4 tsp flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chopped California walnuts or other nuts (or mixed)
1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell
1/2 cup seedless raisins (plumped in boiling water and drained)
3 eggs
2/3 cup milk
4 tsp butter

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

Combine dry ingredients, nuts, and raisins in mixing bowl. In a smaller bowl beat eggs with fork; add milk and melted butter. Stir into dry ingredient mixture, mixing well. Pour into unbaked pie shell.

Bake in oven at 300 degrees F for 1 hour and 15 minutes, until a tester inserted in middle of pie is removed clean or until filling is set. During the long, slow baking the nuts rise and turn golden brown on top of the rich, firmly jelled filling.

Serve cold. Keeps will in refrigerator. (In fact, the pie cuts best after cooling for 24 hours.)