Buttermilk Chess Pie

We were flying home from a weekend in Banff (incredible place, I highly recommend visiting!) and C sent me a link to an article on "Forgotten Pies We Should Bring Back."  He requested that I make a Buttermilk Chess Pie, a Sugar Cream Pie and a Shoofly Pie.  After some pie research, I concluded that the Buttermilk Chess Pie seemed to be the best pie to start with and I also informed him that I had no plans to ever make the Shoofly Pie.  I made a crust by hand for Thanksgiving and I actually preferred it to my usual food processor method.  If you like sweet desserts, this is the pie for you.  Miss F and C were in pie heaven, I was longing for a more traditional fruit pie instead.  The filling recipe is adapted from All Recipes.

Buttermilk Chess Pie

Crust:
1 ¼ cups flour
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into ¼ -inch cubes
3 tablespoons ice water

Filling:
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups sugar
5 eggs
2/3 cup buttermilk
½ cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar and salt. Use a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles a coarse cornmeal. Stir in the water with a fork until the dough pulls together. Roll out the dough on a well floured surface into a 12” circle. Gently press the crust into a 9” pie pan.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Whisk together the flour, sugar, eggs and buttermilk until well combined. Stir in the butter and vanilla. Pour the filling into the prepared pie crust. Bake for 45 minutes or until the filling is set.

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