Buttermilk Pie
Buttermilk pie is one of those desserts that can be made with pantry staples whenever the fancy strikes: a make-do pie, if you will. It belongs to a category of pies, also called desperation pies, that home cooks turned to when ingredients were scarce. Start with a store-bought crust or your favorite pastry and then fill it with a deliciously simple custard flavored with the appealing tang of buttermilk and lemon and the creamy richness of butter. Blind baking, or baking an empty crust with pie weights, is an important step for many custard pies. The baked custard slightly softens the underlying crust, but blind-baking sets the crust and gives it a head start towards crispness. Be sure to fill the empty, chilled crust with enough pie weights, beans, or rice to come all the way up to the top so that the edges don’t slump down while it bakes.
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