McClatchy NewspapersPosted:?05/03/2011 12:01:00 PM PDT
Community Maps | Submit your favorites!As the first Saturday in May approaches, Kentucky Derby fans and home cooks are putting together menus for Derby parties.
Derby Pie typically tops the dessert list -- but unless the divine chocolate nut pie is made by Kern's Kitchen in Louisville, the cook can't call it that. Kern's holds the trademark.
Derby Pie was created in 1954 by Walter and Leaudra Kern as the specialty pastry of the Melrose Inn in Prospect, Ky., in Oldham County. Legend has it that this "Oldham" pie is the original Derby Pie and that it came from Leaudra Kern, who shared it with her homemaker friends many years ago. The name had to be changed, but cooks in the area claim to have the original recipe.
The Oldham pie was made with margarine (not butter), sugar, eggs, light corn syrup, salt, vanilla, chocolate chips, black walnuts and bourbon. It was served warm with whipped cream. Kern's Derby Pie recipe is a secret, although the ingredient label lists granulated sugar, margarine, walnuts, eggs, semisweet chocolate, flour, butter and vanilla.
So we decided to take those same ingredients and make some other tasty desserts -- and give them Derby-related names. The result? Seven gorgeous, decadent desserts: a Derby City Chocolate Pecan Pie, Bet on This Bourbon Cake, Wager Squares, Twin Spires Chocolate Chip Cookies, Winner's Circle Torte, Trifecta Brownies and Racing Silks Chocolate Sauce. Let the races begin.
