In addition to standard chess pie, other flavor variations include lemon, coconut, and chocolate chess pie. Many recipes call for an acid such as vinegar, buttermilk, or lemon juice. Some variations call for the addition of cornmeal as a thickener.
The basic chess pie recipe calls for the preparation of a single crust and a filling composed of flour, butter, sugar, and eggs and milk or condensed milk. Other possible derivations include: the town of Chester, England chest pie, from pie chest, a type of furniture used to store pies prior to home refrigeration or an eggcorn of "It's just pie", due to a misinterpretation of the pronunciation "It's jes' pie" in Southern American English. The most likely is a derivation of cheese pie, as early cookbooks grouped cheesecakes together with pies made of curd or custard. Several derivations of the name chess pie have been proposed. Common types of chess pie are buttermilk, chocolate, lemon, and nut. Today chess pie is most commonly associated as a dessert of the American South. A recipe explicitly called chess pie appeared in the 1877 cookbook by Estelle Woods Wilcox, Buckeye Cookery. It is likely derived from recipes for cheeseless cheesecake that appeared in cookbooks as early as the 17th century, such as in Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery and the English A True Gentlewoman's Delight (1653). It has some similarities to English lemon curd pie. Chess pie was brought from England originally and was found in New England as well as Virginia.