Cardamom Buttermilk Pie

For our Holiday Dessert Party, I wanted to make a pie, but I knew most of our guests would be pie-d out from Thanksgiving, so I nixed pumpkin and pecan pie. I saw this recipe for a cardamom pie, and buttermilk pie apparently is an "American Classic", but I've never once had it or seen it on pie menus. I also LOVE, repeat, LOVE cardamom flavored dishes, so this American Classic sounded just right for our Holiday Dessert Party.

So, I faced some technical difficulties here. For some reason, my pie crust puffed out as a croissant dough would. But, it was still nice and buttery. I added

Cardamom-Buttermilk Pie, recipe from Saveur.com

Makes one 10" pie

Special Time Constraints: You need to chill some ingredients in a bag in the freezer, I let it freeze over night. You also need to chill the dough in your refrigerator for at least an hour, chill the dough again once it is in the pie pan for another hour or so, and the once the pie is prepared, refrigerate it until it is cool.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups plus 3 tbsp. flour
• 1 tbsp. plus 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp. fine salt
• 14 tbsp. butter, divided into 10 tbsp. (cold) and 4 tbsp. (melted and cooled slightly)
• 2 tsp. white distilled vinegar
• 1 tsp. ground cardamom*
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 cups buttermilk
• Finely grated zest of 1 lemon*
• 1 tbsp. lemon juice*

*I added about 3 tsp. ground cardamom, the zest of only 1/4-1/2 of a lemon, and just under 1 tbsp. of lemon juice. It tasted almost like rasamalai, in a crust!

Mix the 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 tbsp. sugar, 1/4 tsp. salt and 10 tbsp. of cold butter in a sealable plastic bag and freeze completely.   You can do this up to 3 months in advance.

Mix vinegar and 1/2 cups of ice water together in a bowl. Turn the contents of the freezer bag into your food processor and pulse until the chunks of butter have reduced to the size of large peas. Add the vinegar mixture to the flour mixture and pulse briefly to incorporate.

Form the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour, or even over night.

On a well-floured surface, roll the dough out to a 13" circle about 1/8" thick. Fit into a 10" pie pan and cut away the excess dough, leaving a 1 1/2" border. Tuck the overhanging dough underneath itself to form a thick edge. Using your fingers, pinch the edges to create a wavy pattern. Cover and chill for an hour.

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Prick the bottom of the crust with a fork, line with foil and fill with dried beans. Bake the pie shell for about 10 minutes. Remove the beans and foil and bake until light brown, about 10 minutes more. Let cool on a rack.

Whisk together the remaining flour and salt with the melted butter, cardamom, egg yolks, and sour cream; beat in the remaining sugar, buttermilk, zest, and lemon juice. Pour into cooled pie shell, place in oven, and reduce heat to 325 degrees. Bake until set on the edges but slightly wobbly in the center, about 1 hour (note, we set our timer to 45 minutes given the kind of oven we have). I think I let mine bake a teeny bit longer.
Let the pie cool completely on a rack and then refrigerate. Serve the pie cool rather than cold.