Peach Pie + Dorie’s Perfect Crust

Apple pie may be part of the American dream but I bet it’s due to being in the right place at the right time. If it had been a few months earlier and peaches were in season, Thanksgiving tables across the country might look quite different come dessert time.

Or, maybe, it's because apples are easy. All you have to do is peel, core and slice. Peaches, on the other hand, take a bit more prep to make pie. I'm an avid baker and must admit it requires a certain mind set to commit the time. The best way to remove the skin is to cut an “X” on the bottom (also referred to as scoring), cooking them for 30 seconds in boiling water (called blanching), remove with a slotted spoon and then plunge in a cold water bath to stop the cooking process. The skins will slip off 1,2,3 at this point, and then you can slice them. I know this sounds likes a lot of work, but I’ve learned the active time is relatively short compared to trying to peel a peach with a pairing knife. 

    

Another fringe benefit was getting to spend some quality time with my daughter. For a kid who's always around food and cooking, you think she'd love it. In the early days I'd prop her on the counter and let her scoop, pour, sift or whatever was age appropriate. Lately, I think she sees the kitchen as competition for mommy's attention. On this particular day, though, she asked if she could help. Well, I was more than happy to have an extra hand peeling these slippery orbs. Turns out her tiny nimble fingers worked pretty well. It was also the first time she used a real knife (gulp), albeit a butter knife.

Many recipes call for cinnamon, nutmeg and some even cloves. I like to let the fruit shine, so a pinch of cinnamon is enough for me. The recipe below lists it “to taste” because it’s your pie and you should feel free to add as much, little or none if you like. The pie crust recipe is a gift from Dorie Greenspan, one of my treasured food writers and go to gal when I have a baking question. She tweeted this one to me from her cookbook Baking: From My Home to Yours. The original recipe calls for a combination of butter and shortening. I love butter, so the more the merrier for me. Come to think of it, the hardest thing about making peach pie is waiting for it to cool so I can have a slice (see, it oozes all over if you dig in too soon).