I hear cucpakes are dead...

First, I'd like to say that I loved cupcakes before cucpakes were the new trend. Everywhere you turn these days it's been "cupcake this" or "cupcake that", cupcake wars, DC Cupcakes, blah blah blah... I get it. They can be tiny and cute, modern or traditional and of course they're totally versatile. Ice those suckers up with ganace, cream cheese frosting, butter cream or my personal plain Jane (especially my red velvets). But, I heard that cupcakes are loosing their steam to soming bigger, better and crustier. Pies. I found this really interesting because over the Thanksgiving holiday I had this wave a pie making, I'm tellin' you, I was a pie makin' mama!! I had forgotten how easy and delicious a fresh piece of pie can really be. Needless to say, Chris came home from work knowing that I'd spent all day in the kitchen baking and was surprised at the ammount of pies we had floating around the fridge. This was also the day that I made fresh dinner rolls, so I think he was carb crazed. I gently explained to him my urge to make pies that day and went down the list of pies I had made. I went down the list and stopped at Buttermilk. He looked at me funny and kind of cocked his head and smooshed his face up and said one word. "Buttermilk???". "Ummmm...yeah, buttermilk, it's my favorite, ya know...buttermilk pie". He didn't know what the hell I was talking about. My friends, my husband had never had buttermilk pie before. YOU may never have had it either but I kind of just stood there in a baking stooper for a moment because I knew his mother was a pie making machine back in the day so how in the heck did he not EVER have a slice before? So I decided to go straight to the source, my mother-in-law Margaret. Sure enough, she'd never made buttermilk pies before and from what I understand now, it's a southern thing and being from Iowa, well, that's definitely not the "south". So today, after reading NPR's article today on the "death of cupcakes" I thought I'd share my buttermilk pie recipe with you since pies are the next big thing ;). Beware, the pie is not hip, thigh, back or butt friendly. Everything in moderation is fine tho...nothing a yoga class can't take care of the next day! Enjoy friend...

3 cups sugar
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
6 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
2 sticks of butter, melted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 unbaked 9-inch pie shells
Preheat oven to 400°F.

Combine all ingredients in large bowl. Mix well. Pour into 2 unbaked pie shells. Bake 10 minutes at 400°F. Reduce heat to 350°F and bake for 45 minutes. Makes 2 pies. I usually cover the crust after about 35 min. so it doesn't get too dark!