Green Trails Inn

Brookfield, Vermont

Heritage Recipe

Aunt Mae's Chess Cake Squares

Ingredients

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 (allow some spring in the center). Cool completely before cutting. Should be very moist and chewy.

My maternal aunt, Mae Hunter, left the northeast right after college to settle down in Nashville, Tennessee, where she became an editor and prominent citizen. Her main love, however, was baking. She filled freezer after freezer with her elegant Butter Pecan Pies and her intricate southern coffeecakes and such. But my favorite recipe of all (and the easiest) is her Chess Cake Squares, a derivative of the far more time-consuming and costly classic, Chess Pie.

I bake these ahead in double batches and freeze them in one-inch squares to thaw out later and place in guest rooms as a little welcome treat. This is a simple recipe that is truly irresistible.

• You found this recipe on 1st Traveler's Choice Internet Cookbook. (www.virtualcities.com)