You’ve seen the commercials this time of year offering visions of families, apple pies, fireworks, American Flags, summertime parties, grilling burgers and big pickup trucks. Well, to me that’s just not completely right. Apples are a fall fruit … to me, they say Halloween, back-to-school, caramel apples, changing colors and shorter days. To me, summer is the time for Peach Pie. During a few weeks in the summer, there is no finer peach to be found — putting the rest of the year’s mealy offerings to shame.
Personally, I am mesmerized by their sweet fragrance and their beautiful color. My resistance is futile.
So, despite the heat I needed a Peach Pie. Desperately.
I use a standard 3-2-1 pie crust. 3 parts flour, 2 parts fat and one part liquid. My everyday flour is a high protein, winter wheat, bread flour. That makes a pretty dense crust and I was out of pastry flour. So, I used half bread flour and half cake flour for a rough approximation of pastry flour.
This pie’s fat was all butter. Partly because I like a crispy butter crust with peaches, and partly because I was also out of any other decent fat. Shortening, lard or a combination would work just fine. But good lard, not the kind in the grocery store. That’s just gross.
This bowl of butter looks like a lot because it is. It’s 2 cups. (I also made extra crust to freeze. Really.) I had this butter in the freezer for awhile before mixing it with the flour and the salt because you want everything to stay super cold until you bake it; this helps make it flaky. Nearly all recipes want you to make your butter look like pea size before adding water, but because I use my food processor I don’t take it that far. After adding the water, the crust becomes a better balance of butter to flour, for me. If I make pea sized butter, when I add the water it gets too small and homogenous.
I gently shaped this into four dough balls, wrapped them in plastic wrap and let them rest in the fridge. A minimum of 30 minutes is best.
Because the peaches were so ripe and easy to peel, I opted against dropping them in hot water to release the peel (make an X at the bottom, drop them in boiling water for 30 seconds and the skin just slides off.) That, and I was lazy.
I tossed the peaches with the spices, sugars and ClearJel and tossed them in the crust-lined pan.
Got it all ready to go, put it in a 425 degree oven and let it go for 40-45 minutes, until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbly.
Pretty as pie, but as my mom always told me (especially when I was being particularly obnoxious,) pretty is as pretty does. While a runny pie still tastes pretty darned good, there’s something truly satisfying to bake a pie that doesn’t spill out all over the plate…
Whew!!
Hope you find some time to make a summer fresh peach pie … it’s the perfect pie for all that perfect summer fun!
- Crust:
- Makes 4 9-inch crusts; they freeze really well. You will need 2 for this pie.
- 3 cups Pastry Flour or 1½ cups each bread flour and cake flour
- 2 cups butter, shortening, lard or a combination of fats
- 1 cup ice water (give or take a bit, depending on the weather)
- Pinch of salt
- Pie:
- 5-6 cups sliced peaches, Freestone are easier to use
- ½ cup white sugar
- ½ cup dark brown sugar
- 3-4 tablespoons ClearJel
- ¾ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
- dash of nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- For the crust: Combine salt and flour, add fat and combine until the butter looks like the size of peas, using a fork or pastry blender. If using a food processor, leave the butter a little bigger. Add the water, a ¼ cup at a time until the dough forms a ball. You will use close to a cup of water, maybe a slight bit more. Be gentle, overworking the dough makes for a tough crust. Divide the dough into quarters, wrap each one in plastic wrap and refrigerate. Alternatively, you can freeze the dough at this point after wrapping for the freezer.
- Remove the dough after a minimum of 30 minutes and roll out to fit your dish. Keep your dough from sticking to the counter by lifting it often and making sure there’s enough flour underneath to keep it loose. Roll the dough lightly on the rolling pin and unroll it into your pie dish.
- For the filling: Peel your peaches and slice them into 8ths. Mix the sugar with the ClearJel and the other spices. Toss the peaches with the vanilla, then the dry mixture and add them to the crust. Roll out the top crust and cover the pie. Crimp the edges as you’d like and cut a vent in top to allow steam to escape. Place the pie on a baking sheet and then into a 425 degree oven for 40-45 minutes, until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbly. Let cool on a wire rack and serve.
