This recipe is intended for one deep dish pie. If you’re making a smaller pie, simply divide the finished dough into two discs. You may find that the blind baking step takes fewer minutes with a thinner, smaller circumference of dough. Use your best judgement here.

Equipment needed: 9.5-inch deep dish pie plate, parchment paper, 2 bags of dried beans for blind baking, hand-held electric mixer or whisk, aluminum foil.

For the dough

See video in post above to learn how this dough is made.

1. Cut butter into cubes and freeze at least 20 minutes. Place buttermilk in freezer for about 10 minutes to get nice and cold. Process the flour, sugar and salt in the food processor until combined.
2. Add frozen butter, coat butter with flour mixture and spread out into an even layer. This helps the butter process more evenly. Pulse until butter breaks down into pea-sized pieces, about 7 pulses. Some pieces will be smaller or larger, that’s fine. Don’t over-pulse it.
3. Add 1/2 cup of cold buttermilk, and pulse for about 5 seconds or until dough is visibly moistened. It will be crumbly! Test it out — dough is ready when you’re able to press it together and it stays together. If it’s not quite there yet, add an additional 1-2 tablespoons of buttermilk until it holds together when you clump it in your fist.
4. Turn out onto lightly floured surface and gently knead/press into either 1 large dough ball or 2 dough balls. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Dough can be made 48 hours in advance and frozen until ready to use. 
5. When ready to roll, remove from fridge or freezer and let come to room temperature for 10 minutes just so it’s easier to roll. Lightly flour surface and rolling pin and roll out into desired circumference. If you like thinner dough, or thicker dough – depends on you!
6. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
7. Gently place dough into pie plate and remove any air pockets, trim and/or crimp/flute the edges against the rim of the pie plate. Ball up a sheet of parchment paper, then open it up and gently place it into your pie crust. Pour in the dried beans, making sure they’re gently yet firmly pressed along the sides of the pie dough to help keep the dough from shrinking and sliding down during the blind baking process.
8. Bake 25 minutes, then remove from oven. Carefully take out the parchment and beans. Gently and loosely wrap aluminum foil around the edges of the pie crust to prevent it from browning too fast. Put the crust back into the oven for an additional 20 minutes to bake it fully.
9. Meanwhile…

Make the filling

1. Place all filling ingredients in a large bowl, and blend until completely smooth using a hand-held electric mixture or sturdy whisk. Scrape the inside of a vanilla bean (if using) into the mixture, blending again until smooth.
2. When the pie crust is done blind baking, remove it from the oven.
3. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees F.
4. Gently press down the bottom of the pie crust if it puffed up. Pour the pie filling into the crust. Bake for 55-60 minutes. If making smaller, more shallow pies, you’ll need to adjust baking times. The custard is ready when it jiggles ever so slightly in the middle and the edges have puffed and look somewhat dry.
5. Cool the finished pie completely to room temperature for several hours. You can eat it like this, or let it set up in the fridge for a couple of hours or overnight.
6. Slice and enjoy!