Buttermilk Pie
by Michael Willms
THIS PIE IS SWEET, AND goes great with a cup of coffee. It drives men wild! Get ready to act like Suzy Homemaker to the max. You can serve it with a mix of fresh berries, or just a big piece alone on a plate. A 10" pie makes eight big wedges.
Pie Crust
- 3 cups flour, chilled
- 3 Tbsp. butter, chilled
- ¾ cup shortening, chilled
- ¾ cup lard, chilled
- ½ tsp. salt
- 2 ½-6 Tbsp. ice water
Preheat oven to 425 degrees; chill bowls and wire pastry blender in freezer.
Success Tip: The secret to great dough is to blend the fats throughout the flour. The fat needs to stay somewhat unmixed so that as it cooks and melts in the flour, it leaves spaces for the flakiness to happen. Properly mixed dough should have a marble-like effect, with streaks of fat throughout. Don’t heat the dough or bowl with your hands. , as the fats will melt too much. Butter gives flavor, lard gives a delicious sandy consistency, and shortening gives crisp crunch. Very scientific.
Place half the flour, all the fats, and salt into chilled bowl and cut together with a pastry blender until all fats are coated with flour in pea-sized lumps. Hold edge of bowl with hand.
Add remaining half of flour and cut together again until all lumps are small and new flour is blended in. Start by flipping the blended pieces through the new flour and coating them with fresh chilled flour.
Sprinkle ice water over the top of the mixture and stir together with a fork. Add enough ice water to make pastry stick together-you can tell it is enough when the dough starts to form a ball.
Now squish the dough with your hands to form a ball as quickly as possible. It is imperative to not melt the fats. Just squeeze the dough into a ball, and if there is enough moisture it will stay together. If the pieces falls apart, stop, sprinkle more ice water on top, blend with a fork, and try squeezing again.
Cover rolling surface generously with flour. Rub rolling pin with flour. Cut dough ball in half with a knife. Place half the dough on the rolling surface. Sprinkle dough with flour and begin rolling into a circle. Sprinkle dough again. Wrap dough around pin, flip over, and unwrap dough and roll again, until round is desired size. Keep sprinkling and turning dough. Dough should move easily across rolling surface so its rolls nicely.
Roll finished dough circle around pin, unroll into flour-sprinkled pie tin,
and ease into place. Do not stretch dough.
Pat dough into pie tin; trim overhang to 1 ½ inches.
Fold edge of crust under itself; pinch it into a beautiful fluted edge, crimping dough between thumb and fore-finger of left hand with forefinger of right hand. Sprinkle entire crust lightly with flour.
Line crusts with foil, fill the foil with dry pinto beans, and bake on the middle rack of the oven. When the edges begin to brown, remove tin from oven and dump out enough beans to carefully remove remaining beans and foil. Gather the foil together like a drawstring purse, keeping beans inside. Return crust to oven; continue baking until all is beautiful, brown, and crisp. Remember, the crust will continue baking after you remove it from the oven, so don’t overcook it.
Filling
- ¾ cup butter
- 2 ½ cups sugar
- 4 large eggs
- ½ tsp. salt
- 2½ Tbsp. flour
- 1¼ cups buttermilk
- 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
- dash nutmeg
Preheat oven to 350 degrees with rack just below middle.
Have all ingredients at room temperature. Cream butter and sugar together until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add eggs and salt; blend until smooth. Sprinkle in flour and blend again. Add buttermilk, vanilla, and nutmeg, and blend. Mixture will look curdled and smell like heaven.
Pour batter into flour-sprinkled crust-lined tin. Batter should just touch the base of the fluted edge-you want a generous, full pie. If you use a 9” crust, don’t overfill, as this pie rises nicely while baking.
Place pie on middle rack and bake 60-90 minutes.
Cool on rack before cutting.
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