Life's a Peach

Last one for today, I promise.

Anyone who has talked to me recently knows that I've been craving peach pie since January. I've just had to wait for peaches to come into season and finally! They're here!! So we got a case of them and I spent three hours researching the science behind pies. It's very exciting to me that on my university's database there are actually academic papers on this. The things that I've learned: 1. Pie crust isn't that hard. You need a fat, flour, and water. Which fat to use is highly debated over, but you want it to be a solid fat, like shortening or butter. Butter is good because it's got the best taste, whereas shortening is easier to work with but doesn't taste as good. 2. The reason pie crust is flaky is because the flour encases the fat and then when it bakes, the fat melts and leaves those beautiful air pockets. If you make the fat pieces too small and over work the dough, it becomes crumbly instead of flaky. 3. You want to use as little moisture as possible for the dough, otherwise you develop too much gluten which makes the crust chewy rather than tender and that's just not what you look for in a pie. A good way to get around this is to use some water and some alcohol to bind it all, because alcohol is an inhibitor when the formation of gluten is involved. Most people will prefer to use vodka because you don't effect the taste of the crust but in my recipe we're using bourbon. However, feel free to get creative! Okay enough of the learning, I'll sprinkle in a bit more later but for now, let's get baking! For the purposes of this recipe, it's a peach pie but you can really use any fruit and keep the exact same recipe!

Love,

TMADJJ

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Crust

THIS MAKES ENOUGH FOR A BOTTOM AND TOP CRUST

if you want a single crust cut the recipe in half

Ingredients:

4 cups all purpose flour

1 tbs kosher salt

2 tbs caster sugar

20 tbs (2.5 sticks) of unsalted butter, cut into thin slabs and frozen (the frozen bit is important)

2 egg yolks

ice water

iced bourbon (remember, you can change this out or only use water if you want)

Recipe:

Incorporate the flour, sugar, and salt. Just like the alcohol, sugar slows gluten from forming. Put your butter in there and start combining it with the flour using your fingertips. The goal is to make it crumbly looking. It's very important you don't let the butter get soft so if it's taking too long to combine, stick it in the fridge for ten minutes and then go at it again. This process is called cutting. You might think that this would be a good job for a food processor and while you can start it in that, don't let it completely combine in there, you'll get crumbles instead of flakes in your crust. Once that is all mixed up, I put mine in the fridge for 20 minutes to make sure it stays cold. Cold is the key to all of this y'all, if it melts prematurely you don't get air pockets in the oven. While this is chilling, mix the egg yolks into the water. The egg yolks aren't necessarily needed, but it does add a richness to the crust. Take your bowl of butter and flour out of the fridge and tablespoon by tablespoon alternate adding bourbon and water. Again, you don't need to do bourbon, I just did it because I thought the taste would pair nicely with peaches and I think I did a three to one ratio of water to bourbon. And remember, you want to use as little moisture as possible. The consistency your're looking for is it holds if you squeeze the dough in your hand but it doesn't look wet or like play-doh. Crumbly but pliable. Once it hits that stage, dump it onto a work surface and start bringing it together until it's a cohesive dough and shape it into a disc. Cover in cling film and put it in the fridge. You can chill it for up to four days but I'd do it for at least an hour.

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Filling

Ingredients:

7 thinly sliced peaches

3/4 tsp nutmeg

3/4 tsp cinnamon

1 cup brown sugar

3 tbs cornstarch

2 tbs butter

kosher salt

1 1/2 tbs lemon juice

Recipe:

Okay so for this, I did half of the peaches macerated, which just means I drew the moisture out of them and turned that juice into a caramelly looking saucy goo to go in the pie. By no means do you have to do this, you could just ignore the bit about cornstarch and butter and just toss your peaches in the rest of the ingredients, or you could macerate all of them and make it completely gooey. I like the half and half because you still get that gooey goodness as well as the texture of the fresh peaches that still have their moisture.

So to macerate, you're gonna take 4 of your peaches and put them into a bowl with the brown sugar (you can use regular sugar, I just like the richness of the brown sugar), pinch of salt and 1.5 tbs of cornstarch. Toss them all together so the peaches are completely covered and then leave them to sit for 45 minutes and let the moisture collect. Once that's over, drain the liquid into a pot and set the peaches aside. In the pot, bring all of that to a simmer and add nutmeg, cinnamon, and lemon juice. Combine the remaining 1.5 tbs of cornstarch with equal parts water and create a slurry out of that, then add it to the saucepan. Bring it to a boil so it thickens and becomes the consistency of caramel syrup. Add the butter and then bring it off the heat once it melts.

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Assembly:

Preheat the oven to 400 Farenheit. Roll out half of your dough into a large circle so it can cover the whole pie dish and has some hanging over the sides. Oh by the way, you want your pie dish to ideally be glass or metal, because it heats more evenly and faster. Ceramic is okay, but if you do that, you want to put it on a cookie sheet that has already been in the oven for 10 minutes. Once your bottom crust is rolled out, cut off some of the excess overhang, but not all of it. You want to still have enough left over to fold it under itself. The crust needs to be pushed into the bottom of the pan, all the way into the edges because if it's not in there entirely you're going to get a soggy bottom. Brush the crust with an egg wash, it seals in the moisture. Put your peaches into the crust, try to arrange them so the rounded part goes outward and they're all laying flat instead of just one giant pile. This also helps with not having a soggy bottom. Put that in the freezer for ten minutes while you roll out the other half of the crust. Once you have that rolled out, carefully place it over the top of the pie and completely seal the two halves of the crust together by crimping it with your fingers. You can then design it however you'd like, but make sure you have a slit at the top of your pie because peaches have a high water content and you need a way for the steam to escape otherwise your pie might literally explode and that's a mess you don't want to clean up. Brush your egg wash on top of your pie and cover the edges of the crust with tin foil so it doesn't burn. Bake for 40-50 minutes, mine took closer to 50 for it to be that beautiful golden brown. Eat with ice cream or your personal mug cake :)