Dessert Diaries

Chess Squares

Tonight I took dinner to a friend that had just had a baby. (The choir director at my school and his wife). I made the standard chicken pot pie, but I needed a dessert. I didn't have time for a trip to the store so I had to find something that didn't involve fancy ingredients. I thought of chess squares but all of my recipe books called for a yellow cake mix (which we don't have). So I went online in search of a substitute and found this: It turned out really well. They are a tad more "cakey" than I think chess squares should be. I barely beat the eggs, so I don't think it was from that. I also took them out of the oven around 17-18 min so I don't think they were overdone. I would say that maybe to use less flour than this calls for. A chess pie barely uses any flour at all, so perhaps that is the culprit. I left out the nuts.

1 cup melted butter
2-2/3 cups brown sugar
2 cups self-rising flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts are fine, pecans are better)
4 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon real vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together all ingredients, spread in either two ungreased 8-inch baking pans or one ungreased 13-inch pan, and bake for about 25 minutes. Do not overbake.