Lemon Chess Pie

I have already made this pie twice in the past two weeks.  It is the perfect balance between sweet and tart. 

Ingredients

1 Prepared pastry for a 9-inch pie plate or a regular frozen pie crust

6 T butter (melted )

1 2⁄3 cups sugar

4 Eggs

2 T cornmeal

2 T grated lemon zest

1⁄4 c lemon juice

1 t  vanilla

Instructions

Preheat oven to 450ºF.  Unfold pie pastry and gently ease into pie plate.  Flute pastry around edge of pie plate.  In a large bowl beat together butter, sugar and eggs until smooth.  Add cornmeal, lemon peel, lemon juice and vanilla. Beat until thoroughly blended.  Pour into pie shell, and bake in a preheated 450ºF oven for 10 minutes.  Reduce heat to 350ºF, and continue baking until knife inserted in center comes out clean or about 30-40 minutes. Cool on wire rack at room temperature for no more than two hours. Serve at room temperature or chilled. 

Hint:  The butter tends to make the crust stick to the pan.  II placed a round piece of parchment paper under the crust to avoid this.    I also dusted it with powdered sugar the first go around.

photo via taste of home since I completely forgot to take a pic.