What it is about pies? We've made 3 in the past 3 months. And in the five years before that? None. Anyway, pies are best with fresh fruit and summer wins that category.
This time, it's peach pie. At a nearby farmers' market, a local peach grower had some great-looking organic peaches, so we bought a couple of boxes for eight dollars. I was surprised to learn a local peach grower existed as I didn't think the local climate was suitable.
In any case, the peaches were firm, ripe, a little lighter in colour and somewhat smaller than our typical supermarket peaches. We made sure to sample one before starting the pie to find out how sweet they were. Turns out they were about medium sweet and tasted good. Once we adjusted the sugar in the recipe, they would make a dee-lish pie. And we were right.
You'll need pastry for a two-crust pie. See the ingredients and instructions in our recipe for our rhubarb and strawberry pie.
The Wonder Woman made rolled out the crust for this one. She had seen it done a couple of times so knew the techniques involved.
Another pie-making tip we learned from the Admiral Catnap (retired) was to prepare the filling ahead of time and store it in an airtight bag in the fridge. This makes rolling the pastry and assembing the pie very fast, as time is of the essence when working with pastry -- gotta keep it cold. And all that is required is to dump the contents of the bag into the pie. The process showed us how juicy the peaches were because the three hours in the fridge turned the mixture from just moist into pretty much a soupy consistency.
Makes one 9 inch pie.
Filling ingredients
- 1 l (4 cups) of peeled, pitted and sliced peaches. See the tip below for how to peel peaches.
- 180 ml (1 1/4 cups) white sugar
- 60 g flour (1/2 cup) flour
- 5 ml (1 tsp) of nutmeg or cinnamon, or a combination of the two
- The juice of 1 lemon
- 60 ml butter, in chunks
- more white sugar, to sprinkle on the pie just after baking.
Put it together
Combine the peaches, sugar, flour, spice(s) and lemon juice.
After pouring the filling into the bottom crust, dot the chunks of butter on top.
Put the top crust in place and press the edges of the crust together with a fork. Slash holes in the top crust to allow steam to escape.
Bake in a 180 C (350 F) oven for 60 minutes. Be sure to place a cookie tray underneath to catch any drips. This can be very juicy and potentially very messy pie.
Place the pie on a rack to cool, and sprinkle white sugar on top while still hot for a sparkly look.
Once cooled enough to eat, tuck in. Ice cream or whipped cream are good accompaniments. Yum!
Bow-Tie Calico gave a less predictable response. She approved of the peaches but not, it seems, of the pie.
Tip: to peel the peaches
Prepare two large bowls of water, one boiling, the other ice water
On one end of the peach, cut an X in the skin
Put the peach into the boiling water for about 30 seconds
Move the peach to the ice water for at least 30 seconds. This stops any cooking that may have started.
Use a table knife or small sharp knife to peel the skin. It almost slides off by itself.
