Family Secrets – Aunt Hen’s Brownie Pie

It doesn’t really matter what it’s called. Aunt Hen’s rich, chocolatey, walnut filled Brownie Pie will always be a Derby Day tradition in our family.

What’s in a name? There are many answers to that question, but this is a food blog and today I am writing about family history… and pie. Still, it is an interesting question and, as you’ll see, it does apply.

A Pie For Every Season

As I was growing up, Aunt Hen often made pies. While I had mixed feelings about the pies themselves, I loved to bake with her. When Aunt Hen rolled out the dough to line a pie plate, or cut strips of pastry for lattice work, I was right there trying to help out. I marveled at the way she would perfectly flute the edge of the dough with her thumb and forefinger. I enjoyed the way the dough smelled and the way it felt. There was magic in the dough, I just knew it. I think I admired it as an artistic medium so wonderfully responsive that it could delight the eye and nourish the body as well as the soul.

The outcome, however, a pretty pie filled with fruit or nuts, or almost anything that commonly filled pies and delighted the adults in my family, was something I approached with caution. As a child, I was a picky eater. When foods touched on my dinner plate, I objected. I did not like jellies or fruit that was too sweet. I avoided the texture of nuts added to pies or baked goods.

In February Aunt Hen thought of George Washington’s Birthday and made Cherry Cheese Pie. I would only eat it without the cherries. In summer she responded to the heat by making lusciously tart Lemon Meringue Pies piled high with her favorite No-Weep Meringue. I only ate bites from the lemon filling and avoided the soft, sticky sweet meringue. At Christmas she baked rich and gooey Pecan Pies. I only picked at the crust, avoiding the nuts.

The Appeal of a Brownie Pie

Finally, in the spring, sometime around the first Saturday in May, she made a pie that sparked my interest. The recipe included chocolate, butter, brown sugar and eggs. What’s not to like about that? But then it also included walnuts, an ingredient of which I remained wary. When asked what she was making she would casually reply, “Derby Pie.”

Aunt Hen’s Derby (or Brownie) Pie was not the most beautiful pie. In fact its appearance was rather homely. The filling barely reached the top of the pie shell. It puffed nicely while baking but quickly sunk back down when taken from the oven. When cool it simply looked like a lumpy brown biscuit in a golden crust.

No, it wasn’t pretty, but cut a slice on a warm May afternoon, then add a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a mound of sweet whipped cream to the top. In a moment, its unattractive appearance forgotten, the fragrance began to remind you of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Then the first bite settled on your tongue like warm cookie dough. With drips of cool vanilla cream running down the sides, this homely pie gained recognition as a treasure that was hard to resist.

Except For the Nuts

Yes, except for the nuts, this was a pie that tempted even my young taste buds. Seeing how I felt, Aunt Hen would sometimes make a separate pie without the nuts, just for me. She would double her recipe and bake two pies, one with nuts and one without. When they came out of the oven she would set them on the big chest freezer on her breezeway to cool. Soon they were ready for us to slice and enjoy.

What a pill I was! I wish I hadn’t been so much trouble, so hard to please. Still, it was wonderful to feel so kindly heard and regarded by a special adult in my life. When Aunt Hen altered a recipe and made it without some significant ingredient that she liked, just for me, I knew that I was special to her. That pie became a symbol of the special bond between us.

Over the years I have acquired somewhat more mature tastes. While I could take or leave the cherries on a Cherry Cheese Pie to this day, I will have to say that I have come to appreciate the nuts in Der…I mean, Brownie Pie. Although as much as the nuts and the chocolate I think I love the story and the part Aunt Hen played in it. It is a story about a secret….

A Passion for Cooking

Aunt Hen was a very dear lady who lived a sober life. She stayed at home with her mother, my grandmother, until Grandma died, a few years before I was born.  Only then, rather late in life by some estimations, did she marry. She had no children and, after a few years, her husband died young leaving her to live in her house alone, near her sister, and near my family, until she died at 84.

Her life was never one of gossip or mischief. She had no bad habits that I know of. Alcohol, even coffee, were of no interest to her and she didn’t gamble or swear. Instead, Aunt Hen worked hard as a waitress at various restaurants along Highway 42 near her home. I remember watching with interest as she tied a perfect bow in her freshly starched blue apron, then turning it around her waist to the back as she got ready to work her shift.

Later, I remember her sitting at her dining room table reading cookbooks or writing out recipes to submit to contests or magazines. If she wasn’t at the table she was most often cooking. Every weekday evening she cooked dinner for her extended family in her small kitchen. Often she made more than enough and would take a meal to a friend or a neighbor. Her passion was cooking and sharing what she cooked with others.

Family Secrets

Aunt Hen was not a woman of secrets. If she had or knew any she kept them well. In fact the only secret I ever learned she was privy to, she never called a secret at all. What we knew we knew by observation. Whenever anyone asked her to share the recipe for what she routinely called Derby Pie, while she would be glad to write it out for them, she would never title it “Derby Pie.” Instead, taking out a card and a pen she would begin transcribing her recipe, carefully writing out …”Brownie Pie” at the top of the card.

If questioned about this unfamiliar name, or at our persistent urging, she might add in parenthesis … (Derby Pie). Even that she did reluctantly. She would tell us the name “Derby Pie” had been trademarked by the Kerns, a family she once worked for. They were known to take legal action against those who used the title for their own pie. My aunt assured us she didn’t want to be sued. We laughed.

Funny thing is, Aunt Hen’s story turns out to be true. There are claims that the recipe is indeed a secret known only by a few close family members and the one employee responsible for mixing the recipe. It is also true that, while they don’t very often, Kern’s Kitchen will still take you to court over the name of their pie.

For the Love of “Brownie” Pie

To me, that seems pretty silly. After all, everyone makes Pecan Pie without squabbling over who the name belongs to, and the world of food is full of recipes for pies with names like Thoroughbred Pie, or Bluegrass Pie or Run for the Roses Pie, that are meant to imply an association with the Kentucky Derby and that famous pie that took its name from the famous horse race itself. Many of these pies are variations that include bourbon or pecans. And many people claim to like them better than the Kern’s Kitchen Derby Pie. It seems even more silly since, the recipe Aunt Hen gave me is so simple, so easy.

If we suggested to my aunt that maybe she didn’t have the real recipe for the Kerns’ special pie, that maybe her recipe was inauthentic and that’s why she wouldn’t write out the name, she became indignant. Picture Aunt Bee from The Andy Griffith Show being questioned about her recipes. The look on Aunt Hen’s face was much the same. Of course she knew, she would tell us. She had worked for the Kerns at the Melrose Inn, for many years. She was there when they began to make the pie. The only difference, she would say, between her recipe and the original, was that she used half brown and half white sugar, because she liked the taste. The Kerns used all white sugar. On occasion she also took the liberty to use pecans or other nuts she had on hand. Only English Walnuts were used in the original recipe.

 What’s In A Name?

Is this the “secret” recipe for the real pie, the one made by Kern’s Kitchen? While I have never known my aunt to tell a lie, I can’t really say that I know for sure. The recipe of the official Derby Pie may well have changed over the years. It may have changed even before they trademarked the name. I can say that Aunt Hen’s recipe is very close to the one published by ZZ Packer in the The New York Times several years ago. The difference is that Aunt Hen’s recipe calls for more chocolate and more nuts. The pictures I have seen of the official Derby Pie look as though it has even less chocolate. Otherwise, they appear to be much the same, and it seems that Aunt Hen had the opportunity and interest to have learned the recipe first hand.

Still, whether this is or isn’t the real “secret” recipe for that famous pie, it is, without a doubt, the real recipe for Aunt Hen’s special pie, a pie I have treasured as long as I can remember. I have it documented in her own handwriting and I’m sure she would be glad to have me share it.

When I told Aunt Hen that I was getting married she began making a cookbook just for me. She bought a simple red journal with “Favorite Recipes” printed on the front and began writing my favorite recipes on the lined pages in her own neat cursive. After writing out a few choices of her own she asked what recipes I would like to have her include. I asked for this recipe. She agreed and began by writing….Brownie Pie (Der…

Well, you fill in the blank. It doesn’t really matter what it’s called. After all, what’s in a name? A warm, rich, chocolaty, “First Saturday in May” Pie by any other name would surely taste as sweet.

Y’all enjoy!