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1800s-present - Southern settlers and rural home bakers using pantry staples and buttermilk
Buttermilk pie is a Southern pantry pie: inexpensive, tangy, and available when fruit is out of season. It sits near chess pie and other desperation pies, using buttermilk and a few staple ingredients to make a custard filling in a plain pie shell.
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Difficulty
Easy
Prep time
15 minutes
Cook time
50 minutes
Total time
1 hour 5 minutes
Servings
8 servings
Region
The American South
Era introduced
1800s-present
Introduced by
Southern settlers and rural home bakers using pantry staples and buttermilk
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Buttermilk pie endures because it turns scarcity into comfort. With no berries to pick or pecans to crack, a cook could still make pie from sugar, eggs, butter, flour, buttermilk, and a crust. The filling bakes into a smooth custard with a gentle tang. It is often compared with chess pie, but buttermilk pie usually uses buttermilk for flavor and flour for thickening instead of cornmeal.
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