Kitty nabs award winning Pastry chef, Phoebe Lawless of Scratch and The Lakewood in Durham for this week’s Sound Palate. Get the recipe at the bottom of the post!

Phoebe tells Kitty, “The Pie that I’m going to choose is our Buttermilk Sugar Pie. It’s probably one of the ugliest pies that we make. It’s a pie that can be really fussy and is really dependent on the quality of the ingredients. When we switched Buttermilk suppliers, the pie went all to hell. I kept blaming the bakers without taking the time to realize it was the Buttermilk. It’s probably the one pie that most of the staff if there’s a weird mangled piece will always get eaten and always get taken home, which doesn’t happen often. It’s just kind of perfection to me. I don’t necessarily have a piece of music that I think pairs perfectly with that pie, but that pie to me reminds me of going in at one in the morning and being alone in the kitchen or the bake shop and turning on loud music and just jamming out my list. The most played list in the shop, at least when I’m in there, is LCD Soundsystem. There’s a great track called “Losing My Edge,” and I love that track. I love that he’s a 40-something year old rocker who’s not irreverent and is doing earnest dance music, and doesn’t give a damn that he’s old because the kids love him. There’s a lot of crossover with the food world, there’s always young people coming up. I don’t necessarily feel like I’m losing my edge in what I’m doing. But I’m always keeping in check that there are really great young people coming into this business in this area and I have just as much to learn from them as they do from me.”

Buttermilk Sugar Pie courtesy Phoebe Lawless of Scratch

Wet mix:

• 1 3/4c full fat buttermilk, brought to room temperature
• ½ cup heavy cream, brought to room temperature
• 2 ounces melted butter, cooled
• ½ vanilla bean, split and scraped
• ¼ cup ap flour

Dry mix:

• 1 c sugar
• 1/3 cup ap flour
• 1/4t  salt

1 9” pie pastry, rolled and crimped and frozen

• Preheat oven to 375
• Combine all wet mix ingredients and reserve, can be done days ahead
• Combine all dry mix ingredients and reserve, can be done days ahead.
• Parbake pie pastry with weights for 15 minutes, remove weights and bake again for another 10 until it no longer looks raw
• Pour dry mix in bottom of pie shell and distribute evenly.
• Pour wet mix over the top, being careful not to have it mix into the dry
• Bake for ~25 minutes until top and crimps are golden. Refrigerate immediately for 2-3 hours.
• Can be served chilled or at room temp.