Derby Pie Shortbread Bars

Originally I was going to call these Chocolate Walnut Shortbread Bars or a similar, rather unimaginative name. However, after a bit of research, I discovered that they are actually a delicious bar twist on traditional Derby Pie. And so, I christened them Derby Pie Shortbread Bars. 

Kern’s Kitchen, the company that produces original Derby Pie®, says the manager of the Melrose Inn in Prospect Kentucky and his parents developed that famed chocolate walnut sweet in the 1950s. According to Kern’s, the recipe is “top secret.” Still, I do know the ingredients because the company lists them (deeply embedded) on its website. Derby pie contains sugar, margarine, walnuts, eggs, semisweet chocolate, flour, butter, and vanilla extract. 

Like Kern’s pie (or at least the picture on the company’s site), my Derby Pie Shortbread Bars are a three-layer affair. However, I’ve “gone rogue” when it comes to what each layer contains.

Instead of thin pie crust, thick sweet filling and a nutty top, I’ve gone for a three more equal layers The bottom is a shortbread base. Next comes melted bittersweet chocolate. Finally, a walnut filling with an optional grated walnut topping. Ingredient-wise, there are three basic differences between these bars and a true Derby Pie. First, unlike Derby Pie, my bars do not contain eggs or margarine. Second, I use bittersweet not semisweet chocolate and light brown, rather than granulated sugar. And third, my bars contain a touch of heavy cream and honey. Even with those changes, the bar tastes like a hand-held version of a chocolate walnut pie.

Why post this recipe in February when the Kentucky Derby is not until May? Like many of my posts, this one evolved out of a combination of necessity and coincidence. 

This month’s Progressive Eats theme is Southern food. It sounded wonderful and I do love many Southern dishes. Still, I was somewhat at a loss as to what my contribution should be. I’m not from the South and do not do much Southern cooking myself. I searched my blog archives and could only come up with three truly Southern recipes, chocolate chess pie, old fashioned biscuits and cornmeal-crusted okra. If you count Washington, DC as Southern city, maybe I get to four, with old fashioned (not sweet) corn muffins. 

Given our theme, I decided to check out books and sites specializing in Southern cooking. And with my sweet tooth, you can imagine that I gravitated to desserts. Walnut and pecan recipes kept catching my eye. By coincidence, I had baked a version of this chocolate walnut shortbread bar a few months ago. After friends raved about it, I decided to work on the base, and then blog about it. So this bar, now renamed, seemed like my logical contribution to a Southern meal. 

My recipe combines several others with a few adaptations.

The shortbread base is a mash-up of recipes from Fine Cooking and Once Upon a Chef.

I adapted the filling from an old Epicurious favorite pecan pie bar. The chocolate layer in-between comes from a comment on the Epicurious pecan pie bars, and the dusting of fresh ground walnuts is my own flight of fancy.

If you’re a shortbread aficionado, you may notice that my version is a bit unusual. According to an article in The Guardian (a British newspaper that has great food coverage and recipes), traditional shortbread contains just flour, softened or chilled butter, and caster sugar. (The American names for caster are superfine or bar sugar.) Over time, cooks began to add a small amount of rice flour or semolina to provide a bit more of a crumbly texture to the biscuit.

Why This Recipe Is Not Traditional

For the shortbread base, I’ve made three changes to the traditional recipe.

• First, I melted the butter, a trick I picked up from Nicole Rees’ Fine Baking article on shortbread.
• Second, I used confectioners or powdered sugar instead of superfine. In the US, confectioners or powdered is easier to find and, like superfine, it dissolves quickly.
• Third, instead of rice flour, I added cornstarch.

Why cornstarch? Well, I’m a Nigella Lawson fan. She adds a few tablespoons of cornstarch to her Victoria sponge cake in one of her earliest books, How to be a Domestic Goddess. After making that cake and seeing how cornstarch softened the texture, I decided to follow her lead. No question – I am far from a southern belle. Still, I admire a woman who aims to make me a domestic goddess and don’t mind following her advice. 

Like shortbread, this buttery base may not always stay in place as you cut the bars. Still, I didn’t hear any complaints about the crumbs. 

Welcome to Progressive Eats, our virtual version of a Progressive Dinner Party. Each recipe in our menu this month features food from the South, and our host is Karen, who blogs at Karen’s Kitchen Stories.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, a progressive dinner involves going from house to house, enjoying a different course at each location. With Progressive Eats, it’s a virtual party. After the host choses our theme for the month, our members share recipes suitable for a delicious meal or party. Using the links below, you can hop from blog to blog to check them out. Come along and see all of the delicious dishes from the South!