High Altitude Chess Pie

This high altitude recipe for a traditional chess pie starts with a flaky all butter pastry crust, filled with sweet, creamy custard. A delicious pie for Thanksgiving!

You might also love these recipes for salted honey custard pie, chocolate chess pie, and coconut cream pie.

This site contains affiliate links.  As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  This means that I may make a small commission if you purchase a product using those links.  This in no way affects my opinion of those products and services.  All opinions expressed on this site are my own.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

A Little Less Sweet. Chess pie has a reputation for being super sweet (sickeningly sweet, in my opinion), and that’s simply not what I was going for with today’s recipe. Most recipes you’ll find on the internet use between 1 1/2 – 2 cups of sugar for one pie! Too much sugar in a dessert is never a good thing, since dessert should be so much more than just sweet. Not to mention, all that sugar in a high altitude recipe can be disastrous, as caramelization happens more quickly, leading to fillings that boil over with a less than satisfactory texture. I found that with just one cup of sugar, this pie was plenty sweet, and still had some nice browning on top. If you want more browning with less sugar in the filling, you could even try sprinkling a small amount of sugar on top of the baked pie and browning it with a creme brulee torch.

Silky and Creamy. This is a custard pie, with the main ingredients of butter, sugar and eggs. Chess pie is not necessarily the same thing as buttermilk pie, as buttermilk pie is a type of chess pie, but not all chess pies are buttermilk pies. A little vinegar or lemon juice adds a touch of acidity to balance the sugar, so this is sometimes also referred to as a vinegar pie.

Perfect for All Seasons. You can enjoy this pie any time of year, but it would be a wonderful flavor to add to your Thanksgiving pie menu.

High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude.

See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.

Ingredients

• Pie Dough. My recipe for all butter pie dough is flaky, buttery and delicious, and is the perfect base for every type of pie. You’ll be pre-baking the pie crust for today’s pie, since the filling will be baked at a low temperature, too low to properly bake the crust.
• Granulated Sugar.
• Unsalted Butter.
• All Purpose Flour + Cornmeal. The flour and cornmeal serves as a thickener for the custard, with the cornmeal adding a traditional crunch to the sugar layer on top of the pie.
• Salt.
• Eggs.
• Cream.
• Vanilla Extract.
• Lemon Juice. Instead of lemon juice, you can also use white distilled vinegar.

Instructions

Crust

• Prepare 1/2 Recipe Pie Dough (or make the full recipe, and freeze half the dough for another pie).
• Roll the dough out into a circle, and fit it into your pie pan. Fold the edges under and crimp the edges. Freeze the crust for 30 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 400 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven.
• Lay a piece of parchment paper over the frozen crust, and fill with dried beans or pie weights.
• Bake the crust on the center oven rack for 25 minutes. Remove the beans and the paper from the crust, then return the crust to the oven and bake for another 15-25 minutes, until it’s golden brown and completely baked through. If the bottom of the crust puffs up a little, just gently press it flat again with a spoon. Set the crust aside while you make the filling.
• Reduce the oven temperature to 300 F.

Filling

• With a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a hand held electric mixer), beat the sugar and butter on medium speed for 3-4 minutes, until fluffy. Scrape the bowl down.
• Add the flour, cornmeal and salt, and mix until combined.
• Beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after adding each, then beat in the cream, vanilla and lemon juice until the batter is smooth and well combined.

Bake

• Pour the filling into the prebaked crust. Bake the pie at 300 F on the center oven rack for about 50 minutes, until the top of the filling is golden brown.
• Set the pie on a wire rack to cool for one hour at room temperature, then refrigerate for several hours until completely cooled.

Serving

• I recommend making a batch of stabilized whipped cream to serve with slices of pie.

Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!

Frequently Asked Questions

You Might Also Like

Please check out my Amazon Shop for a curated collection of some of my favorite cake pans from trusted brands, baking tools, ingredients, pretty things and fashion finds. I recommend products that I buy and use every day!

Did you love today’s recipe? Please rate the recipe and let me know in the comments what you thought! Also, be sure to follow Curly Girl Kitchen on Instagram, and tag me when you try one of my recipes so I can see all your delicious creations!