Chef John’s Buttermilk Pie

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Description

Not only is this buttermilk pie easy to make and beautiful to look at, it’s also bursting with the kind of bright, tangy flavor that no other custard-style pie can touch. This is sort of like a vanilla custard, meets lemon meringue pie, meets very light cheesecake. Except better.

Ingredients

  • 1 prepared dough for 1 (9-inch) single crust pie
  • ½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1 ½ cups white sugar
  • 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ⅛ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • Zest from 1 lemon
  • Juice from 1 lemon
  • 1 cup buttermilk

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
  2. Roll out pie dough large enough to fit pie dish with just a bit of overhang. Transfer dough to pie dish and gently fit into dish. Trim excess dough hanging over the edge. Fold about 1/2 inch of the edge of the dough to the inside edge of the pie crust to reinforce it. Crimp the edge. Prick the bottom and sides of the crust with a fork about 10 times. Place a sheet of parchment paper gently into the crust and fill with pie weights or dried beans so pie crust doesn’t bubble up with you bake it.
  3. Bake crust in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Remove the dish from the oven; lift weights from pan with edges of parchment paper. Allow crust to cool completely.
  4. Place butter in mixing bowl; add sugar. Stir together until completely combined using a spatula
  5. 4 or 5 minutes. Add flour and salt. Mix together until combined. Stir in 3 eggs; mix until slightly blended. Then using a whisk
  6. whisk together until mixture is fairly smooth and creamy.
  7. Pour in vanilla extract. Add nutmeg
  8. zest of lemon
  9. lemon juice
  10. and buttermilk. Whisk until thoroughly mixed
  11. 2 or 3 minutes. Pour into the pie shell.
  12. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown and just set
  13. 45 to 55 minutes. Pie should have a slight wiggle
  14. but not a soupy jiggle. Cool to room temperature. Refrigerate until chilled
  15. 1 to 2 hours.

Prep Time: 20 mins

Cook Time: 1 hr

Total Time: 1 hr 20 mins

Servings: 8

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