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Dessert

Buttermilk Pie

A custard pie made with buttermilk, sugar, eggs, corn starch, butter, and lemon extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Buttermilk Pie

Why it works: Corn and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 349 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Buttermilk Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the buttermilk, sugar, and eggs until well combined.

  3. Add the corn starch and mix until smooth.

  4. Melt the butter and stir it into the mixture.

  5. Flavor with lemon extract to your preference.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake for about 30-40 minutes, or until set.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Corn + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together349 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the filling into a custard as they cook, giving the pie its body.
Corn starch
Thickens the liquid filling so it holds its shape when baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the custard smooth and tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a softer, silkier texture.
Buttermilk
Adds tangy acidity and moisture to the custard filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat, and the cornstarch thickens as it heats. Pulling the pie too early leaves a runny center, while overbaking can make the custard weep or turn grainy.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (buttermilk, sugar, egg, corn, butter, lemon):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against buttermilk, sugar, egg, corn, butter, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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