The Season of the Peach Pie

It's my favorite time of the summer because local freestone peaches are in season. Oh baby. Peach Pie. The mouth waters at the thought. Peach pie with cream. Peach pie with vanilla ice cream. Peach pie for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Joe comes into the kitchen just as I'm rolling out the bottom crust.

"Thank god for food processors," I say, with a mental picture of me slowly, painfully cutting butter into the flour with knives. "Or I never would have made my first pie crust from scratch."

"People used to do that all the time," he replied.

"Lucky you we live in the age or food processors."

"Hm."

Lucky you. Lucky me. Lucky all our friends. Because otherwise there'd be no peach pie in this house.

Someday I'll actually manage to wait long enough for a pie to set.

Penzey's Peach Pie

This recipes comes from a Penzey's Spices catalog, with my annotations in parentheses.

I love this crust. First, it's made of butter, and butter makes the best tasting crusts. Second, it's about the least fussy pie dough I've ever worked with. And the sugar topping makes for a gorgeous crystalized top crust.

Dough: makes two 9" crusts
2 C all purpose flour
1 C butter or shortening
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp salt
1/2 C milk
extra flour

Pie topping
1 large egg white
1 Tbs water
2-4 Tbs vanilla sugar

Filling
5 C peeled, sliced peaches (8-10 peaches) (I use around 7 cups for my pie pan.)
3 Tbs arrowroot starch
1/4 C cool water (or try a little less)
2 tsp cinnamon
1/3 C vanilla sugar (or a bit of vanilla extract)
1/2 C white sugar
1 Tbs butter

1) Pre-heat oven to 450 F. Put a cookie sheet on bottom rack to catch drips.

2) Filling: Clean, peel, and slice peaches. Mix water and arrowroot. Mix dry ingredients, add to water mixture. Toss gently with peaches. Peaches need to sit for at least 15 minutes. Stir occasionally.

3) Dough: Cut butter in small pieces. Add dry ingredients and mix or beat until crumbly. (Can use a fork or food processor.) Add milk in thin stream until blended.

4) Divide dough in half. Roll out dough. (I chill the dough for 5-10 minutes or so because it helps with rolling out. Keep second ball chilled while working with first ball.) You may need a lot of extra flour to keep it from being too sticky. Crust should be a few inches wider than pie dish. Transfer to pie dish. (I dust lightly with flour and gently fold in half, then in quarters, then it's easy to lift and unfold into the pan.) Roll out second crust.

5) Whisk egg white with water. Brust bottom pie shell with about 1/2 of egg mixture.

6) Fill with peaches.

7) Dot with butter.

8) Cover with second crust. Trim excess dough. (I never do, that's why my edge is so thick.) Fold edges over and press to seal. Vent crust with a few pokes with a fork.

9) Brust top with rest of egg white mixture.

10) Sprinkle generously with vanilla sugar over top.

11) Bake on center rack for 15 minutes at 450F. Lower temperature to 350F and bake for 40 minutes more. Cover the crust edge to protect against burning. Total baking time: 55 minutes.

12) Cool for 6-8 hours to allow the pie to completely set. Any less, and the filling won't be set. (Really, truly! Eight hours is best.)

Comments

[dexygus]

thanks for posting the recipe. i'll be trying the filling today with my galette dough. i can almost taste it.

[Kitchen Chick]

Sometimes I think the filling is a bit too liquid-y, but I think that's because I've never managed to wait long enough for it to fully set. (Next time! Next time I will wait long enough.)

[Lisa]

I made this pie several times and absolutely love it although I thought the original recipe called for a lattace top. When I got married, I told my husband-to-be to keep catalog, so he packed it (supposedly) when I moved into his home. We now have boxes and boxes of stuff in the basement and I don't have the time, energy or strength to rummage through all of them to find the catalog. I actually called a well known baking company that puts out a catalog and asked them to send me the recipe for the peach pie that was published a few years ago in its catalog. They sent me two that were nothing at all like this one (neither had arrowroot nor cream of tartar) so I didn't even bother to make them. Periodically I look on the internet for a peach pie recipe with those ingredients and have never had any luck. I never thought of Penzey's although I get that catalog too. Thanks so much for sharing this. Anyone who likes peach pie should try this one--you will love it.