Recipe: Butter Pie

PIE-A-DAY #24

This pie tells it like it is. Butter Pie. Need we say more? It comes from Esa Yonn-Brown of Butter Love Bakeshop.

Read below for the recipe, and click here to enter YOUR delicious pie (or pies) in the 4th Annual Good Food Pie Contest on Saturday, September 8th at LACMA.

Butter pie actually contains less butter than the spinach pie we shared last month. Choose fat over vegetables, then?

Butter Pie

(From Esa Yonn-Brown of Butter Love Bakeshop.)

Time: 1 1/2 hours

Yield: 8 to 10 servings.

CRUST

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 1/2 teaspoons sugar

8 tablespoons (one stick) cold unsalted butter, cubed

1/4 cup ice water

FILLING:

6 tablespoons (3 oz) unsalted butter at room temperature

2 cups brown sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, for serving.

Make the crust:

1. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt and sugar. Add butter and gently toss with the dry ingredients until evenly coated. Using fingertips and thumbs, press each cube of butter into a thin leaf, and continue tossing in flour. When all butter is coated, add ice water one tablespoon at a time. Continue tossing gently until mixture starts to look ragged and just holds together when squeezed. Wrap loosely in plastic, waxed paper or parchment. Press dough down firmly into a disk. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes, or up to one day, before rolling. (Dough will keep frozen for up to a month).

2. Heat oven to 350 degrees. On a lightly floured surface, roll chilled dough into a circle 12 inches in diameter and 1/4-inch thick. Transfer to a deep-dish 9-inch pie pan, lifting dough to let it settle into corners of pan; do not stretch it. Turn edges under to make a thick rim; Pinch into desired pattern.

3. Line crust with parchment or foil and cover bottom with pie weights, dried beans or raw rice. Bake in lower half of oven for 15 to 20 minutes, then remove weights and bake in upper half of oven 5 to 10 minutes, until just golden on edges.

Meanwhile, make the filling:

4. In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter and brown sugar together at medium speed until sugar looks like wet sand. Add salt and vanilla extract. Add eggs one at a time and beat until creamy and light, about a minute.

5. Scrape filling into parbaked crust. Place pie on a sheet pan and bake in center of oven for 25 to 35 minutes, until top looks dry and browned. The filling will form a skin and puff slightly, then deflate as it cools and sets. Let cool to room temperature. Serve at room temperature with very lightly sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.