Buttermilk chess pie is a simple Southern pie that pairs a buttermilk-and-vanilla-flavored custard with a flaky crust. Many of those we have tasted are cloyingly sweet and bland, with that vanilla flavor all but nonexistent. As for the texture, they’re either rubbery and stiff or loose as pudding. How do you make a perfect buttermilk chess pie? Here’s what we discovered:
Mix butter and vegetable shortening in the crust for easy-to-handle dough with an eminently flaky texture.
Keep the butter cold and cut it into the flour in a food processor after mixing in the shortening. The whirling blade quickly chops the butter into small bits without the risk of overheating and melting it.
Add water to the dough by hand in a large mixing bowl, not the food processor. It is all too easy to overwork the dough and thereby toughen it if the water is added in the food processor.
There’s no need to parbake the crust, but the pie should be baked on the lowest rack to ensure that the bottom crust browns well.
For the silkiest texture, add a couple of extra egg yolks along with the whole eggs to the custard. Using whole eggs exclusively makes the filling rubbery and stiff.
Combine light brown sugar and granulated sugar for a subtly earthy flavor. We prefer far less sugar than most chess pies include.
Add a stiff shot of vanilla extract to the filling (a full tablespoon) for the deepest flavor.
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