Did you happen to catch me on Fox 32’s morning show “Good Day Chicago” talking about edible gift ideas from the Chicago Food Swap? If not, be sure to watch the clip here!
When your hobby becomes your profession, it is a bit of an adjustment. For years, it was my dream to cook and write about food professionally. Now that I am in the midst of writing a cookbook and running the Chicago Food Swap, I am living that dream and I am grateful for it every day.
But sometimes — in fact, most of time these days — I find myself developing recipes and cooking dishes because I have to: I work on recipes for the book or for a client. I am always thinking a few weeks ahead so I can develop timely content for this site. (As an example: Thanksgiving happens in October around here.) Less and less am I able to cook something just because I feel inspired to try a new recipe or experiment with a new ingredient. Now that I am complaining, mind you! It’s just . . . different.
So I am playing around with a new idea which is that on Sunday, I get to cook what I want. I take a break from the work plan and the list of recipes needing to be developed and I just give myself free rein in the kitchen. Perhaps I will try to master a new technique or cook something from one of my (many) cookbooks. I may well end up writing about it here, but only if I feel like it.
This recipe for maple buttermilk pie came about because I had two cups of the tangiest, yummiest buttermilk in my refrigerator and I was dying to do something special with it. Another thing that I am getting used to about writing a cookbook is how much food you end up with! (Honestly, you should see the inside of my refrigerator. It’s like Crazy Condiment Central.) Last week, I was testing recipes for cultured butter and the byproduct of cultured butter is — you guessed it — homemade buttermilk. Yum.
When you have homemade buttermilk, you don’t just want to make pancakes or biscuits, although those things are delicious. You want to give buttermilk a starring role. Hence buttermilk pie. But don’t think that you cannot make this pie unless you have homemade buttermilk. Oh no. This pie would still be sublime with plain old buttermilk from the grocery store.
What is buttermilk pie? It is what people used to call a desperation pie: the kind of pie you make in the dead of winter when there is no fruit to be had. It is sometimes confused with chess pie, another traditional Southern dessert. But unlike chess pie, buttermilk pie does not contain cornmeal.
The key to buttermilk pie is the silky, not-too-sweet custard. Yellow as a daisy, the custard quivers with anticipation in its flaky shell. The first bite slides down your throat as you marvel at the subtle tang of the buttermilk and the earthy sweetness from the maple. It is so light that before you know it, the whole slice is gone and you have to fight the urge to have a second. My husband insisted that the texture of the custard reminded him of something, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. To me, the custard is almost like flan or creme brûlée, which is hardly a bad thing.
Although I made this pie only for the fun of it and my family even cut into it before I could get a proper picture, this post is still timely because maple buttermilk pie would make an outstanding dessert for your holiday table. I can think of few better ways to end a large holiday meal than with a slice of this delicate custard pie.
- 7 ounces cold, unsalted butter
- 2¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ tablespoon sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- ½ cup ice water
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 4 large eggs at room temperature
- 2 tablespoons brown or maple sugar
- ¼ cup flour
- Pinch salt
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- 2 cups buttermilk
- Cut the butter into small cubes and place half of the cubes in the freezer. Return the other half to the refrigerator until needed.
- Combine the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse a few times to mix. Add the chilled butter from the refrigerator to the dry ingredients and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
- Add the frozen butter to the food processor and pulse until the butter is in small but still visible pieces.
- Combine the lemon juice and ice water and add six tablespoons of the mixture to the ingredients in the food processor. Pulse several times until combined. Pinch a bit of the dough and if it holds together, you do not need to add more liquid. If it is still dry, add more of the liquid, one-half tablespoon at a time. Remove the dough to a bowl or a well-floured board.
- Knead the dough until it forms a ball. Divide the dough into two and wrap each half well in plastic wrap. Place half the dough in the refrigerator to relax for at least a half-hour. Reserve the other half for another use. (Can be done in advance.)
- If your dough was chilled for longer than thirty minutes, remove from the refrigerator and allow to soften for ten to fifteen minutes before rolling it out.
- Prior to rolling out the dough, strike it with your rolling pin to flatten. This will soften it further.
- Preheat the oven to 375 and grease the bottom and sides of a 9-inch pie plate.
- Liberally dust a pastry board or mat and your rolling pin with flour.
- Roll the dough out, rotating it and turning it frequently and adding more flour as necessary to keep it from sticking, until it is the size of your pie plate and between ¼ and ⅛ of an inch thick.
- Carefully center the pie dough in the plate and press it into the bottom and sides. Trim or fold over any excess dough around the edges and make a pretty crimped crust by pinching with your fingers.
- Blind bake the crust by covering it with parchment paper and filling with pie weights or raw rice. Bake for twenty minutes, then remove the parchment paper and pie weight and bake an additional five minutes. Remove from the oven and turn down the heat to 325.
- Allow the crust to cool completely before filling.
- Make the custard by whisking together the eggs, sugar, flour and salt in a large bowl.
- Pour in the vanilla, maple syrup and buttermilk and whisk until smooth.
- When the crust is cool, pour in most of the filling and then transfer the pie plate to the oven. Pour in the remaining filling and bake until the filling is set, about 50 minutes to one hour.
- Allow to cool completely before slicing.
Would you believe your southern friend here has never had buttermilk pie? It’s true, I haven’t. But, this one sounds pretty amazing!
Have you heard of it though? Or is the idea completely new?
I’ve heard of it and seen it offered in diner type restaurants, but have never tried it.