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Dessert

Buttermilk Pie

A custard pie made with buttermilk, eggs, sugar, flour, and butter, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Buttermilk Pie

Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Buttermilk Pie

makes three pies

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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, sugar, flour, and baking soda.

  3. Add the butter and buttermilk, and mix until smooth.

  4. Flavor the mixture with nutmeg, lemon, or vanilla.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into pie crusts to make three pies.

  2. Top with meringue and brown slightly in the oven.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Add richness and help the filling thicken and set as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it sets into a sliceable custard rather than runny.
Buttermilk
Adds tang and moisture, giving the filling its characteristic soft texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps give it a tender, smooth texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of buttermilk to lighten the filling and aid browning.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer flavor and smoother, more tender filling.

The step that matters

Mix the filling until smooth. Thorough mixing distributes the flour and baking soda evenly, so the filling sets uniformly and doesn't develop pockets of starch or uneven rise and texture.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, butter, buttermilk. 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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