Buttermilk Pie


I want to say, this past week I became part of a fabulous new website called Honest Cooking. It's got lots of tips and recipes to check out, and I'm a contributor! If you click on the badge on the right side of the page, you can see my articles... The site in general is very cute, interesting and well-written. I love how international it is and I'm so glad to be a part of it!
Now on to the pie...


This pie mainly came out of the fact that I just had too much buttermilk in my fridge. I had to use it up! I can't stand to actually drink buttermilk but I love it in baking.
My mom and most of my family though, enjoy drinking a different kind of buttermilk straight up.... My grandmother makes buttermilk at home in India and they often add salt and/or spices to it. It's common to be had after meals.


The buttermilk available in the US though, seems different and thicker. This doesn't stop my mom though and she still drinks the American buttermilk plain! Maybe I'm the only one who gets weirded out by it... Well anyway, she drank it when she was at my place, and I had assumed she nearly finished the container and bought a new one. After she left I realized the one she drank from was still half full (or half empty) and therefore was stuck with a ton more buttermilk than I had intended.


I hate wasting food, and especially letting great ingredients go to waste. So I started making a bunch of buttermilk recipes, including a chocolate pistachio bundt cake that turned out rather delicious, and this buttermilk pie.


I was also excited to go back to my Baked Explorations book for a recipe. There are so many in there that I'm looking forward to trying! They had included a recipe for buttermilk pie, which is apparently a Southern classic. Even though I recently left the south, in my 15 years of living there, I had never heard of this pie!




Buttermilk pie is basically custard poured into a pie shell. The authors of Baked Explorations warned that the pie is not good-looking and tastes better than it looks. They also incorporated some maple syrup into it, giving it a bit of a Canadian feel.


I have to admit that this pie is not my favorite... I almost considered not posting the recipe but others did enjoy it, so it's clearly a matter of personal taste, and not so much a general dislike. I think I like my custard crust-less.


Anyway, if you have buttermilk in your fridge that you need to use up (maybe you bought some for the best coffee cake and it's left over!) then this is worth checking out. It's sweet and homey, a comfort food of sorts.
The recipe is also very simple and quick.

Buttermilk Pie
Makes one 9in pie


1 Pie crust (store-bought or homemade)


4 large eggs
2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup melted and cooled butter
1 cup buttermilk
1/8 cup maple syrup


Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly beat the eggs. Whisk in 2 tbs of flour. Add both sugars and whisk well until it all combines. Whisk in the butter, buttermilk, and maple syrup. Sprinkle the 1 tsp of flour over the unbaked pie crust. Pour the batter into the shell, bake for about an hour or until the custard is set.


Serve at room temperature. Refrigerate any leftover pie, tightly covered for up to 2 days.

Comments

  1. Indian buttermilk is legit.

    American "cultured buttermilk" (if you bought it from a grocery store) is fake -- it's milk that was pasteurized and then had some bacteria added back in. Then some chemicals and thickening agents. Probably why it has an odd thickness.

    Anyways, if you're making things that feature buttermilk, it's worth hunting down the best buttermilk you can. In some places (sadly, DC/MD/VA included) real buttermilk is illegal (the whole raw milk thing). The best I've found around is whole milk cultured buttermilk, which at least has a little more richness. Some places do sell real buttermilk that has been pasteurized after the fact, which is somewhat confusing... I don't know if that's still illegal here.

    Anyways. If I'm making buttermilk pancakes/biscuits/pastries/friedchicken, the buttermilk better be freaking awesome, because otherwise I might as well use lemon juice & milk and drop "buttermilk" from the title...

    My food nerdery for the day.

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  2. this sound so good! i've never had buttermilk pie before but it's definitely going on my must-make list now :)

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