Wherein I ramble about pie a whole lot (but also, another giveaway!)
Happy Friday, friends! If you're on Instagram, I'm doing a giveaway there for an advance copy of The Wedding Party -- click over to enter! I asked people to tell me about their BFFs, and in news that I'm a total sap, all of the comments about people's awesome friends have gotten me so emotional! I'm very glad I'm doing a random drawing for this one, because there's no way I'd be able to decide on which story was the best -- all of your friends are so great.
Okay so I have talked about pie a lot in this newsletter, but that's because a) I really love eating pie, b) I really love making pie; and c) I feel like I learn something new about pie every time I make it. I made this beautiful pie for a friend's birthday party this past weekend, and doing so taught me even more about pie, and reminded me of things I always forget, so I'm going to tell you about all of them, and also give you the recipe for that lovely peach pie.
First, my favorite pie dough recipe is in this old newsletter. The original website that taught me this recipe is now offline, as are the pictures I refer to, which is part of the reason I put some pictures of the pie dough making process in that Instagram post. I did not post pictures or video of the rolling out process, because I don't have a phone stand to hold my phone while I use both hands to roll, but my advice there is my advice for all pie making endeavors: 1) give the dough plenty of time to rest in the fridge between all of the steps; 2) be patient with the dough; 3) don't rush it. I know all three of those points are mean more or less the same thing, but it's worth it to me to repeat it, because the one thing that has improved my pie making is patience. If you're going to make a pie for a Saturday evening, start the crust on Friday, at a minimum -- you'll be so much happier that way, and your pie will be all the better for it.
Second, if you want to do a lattice crust, or anything at all decorative with the crust, make extra dough! I was making two pies for the party, one double crust and one single crust, but I just went ahead and doubled the above linked recipe, so I technically had enough for two double crust pies, but actually had enough for a double crust lattice pie, a single crust pie, and then about half a single pie's crust in leftover dough. You can use the leftovers to make little pop tarts, or roll it back up and freeze it for future pie trim. But it's so much less frustrating to have extra dough if you want to do something fun, or even if you mess up a little and want to make a fix.
Third, and here's my book recommendation for the week: The Four and Twenty Blackbirds Pie Cookbook is fantastic. I know I've recommended it before in this newsletter, but I'm doing it again, because while making the lattice to this crust I discovered their incredibly helpful and detailed instructions for making a lattice, and it made doing so a snap.
Fourth: If you do not want to make your own pie crust, but you still want to make pie, I will not judge you! Nor should anyone else! I make my own pie crust because it's fun for me; if that's not fun for you, go to the grocery store and buy some crust and use it to your heart's content. I've personally had great experiences with the Trader Joe's frozen pie crust, but there are other great options out there too. Just make sure to buy extra crust if you're going to do something fun with the top of your pie, and if you're doing a single crust pie, keep the crust frozen until you blind bake it, trust me.
Fifth, and I've said this in this newsletter before, but this Serious Eats piece about blind baking pie crusts made an enormous difference to me -- I failed at doing this over and over again until the tips in this piece made me succeed. The biggest one for me was to use SUGAR as your pie weight! Just line the pie dough with aluminum foil (after shaping and chilling it) pour sugar in, and bake it just like that. After you're done, pour the sugar right into a canister and use it for anything you'd use sugar for.
Sixth: you do not need a fancy pie pan to do this, a glass Pyrex one may not be as pretty as some other ones, but it makes the best pie.
Now that I've written a lot about pie, here's the peach pie recipe I made last weekend. I used this Simply Recipes Old-Fashioned Peach Pie recipe, and it and my notes about it are below.
Peach Pie
My or your favorite pie dough, half of it rolled out flat, half of it rolled out into a pie pan (see illustrations in the above recipe for details) chilled in the fridge for at least a few hours and up to a few days
3 pounds fresh peaches, peeled and sliced (for me this was 12 peaches)*
1/2 cup sugar
1 to 2 teaspoons lemon juice
pinch kosher salt
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk or cream
coarse sugar for the top
*The easiest way to peel fresh peaches is to cut a large X on the bottom of the peach, and then plunge it into boiling water for about 30 seconds, and then drop it into cold water. Makes it much easier to pull the peel off.
In a large bowl, combine the peaches, the sugar, the lemon juice, and the salt. Then add the cornstarch and mix again. Spread the peaches into the chilled pie pan, and put into the fridge for about 30 minutes. I don't know if I had super juicy peaches or what, but at this point my peaches were in a sea of liquid in the bowl, so I used a slotted spoon to transfer the peaches into the pie shell without transferring all of the juice (my pie was plenty juicy without it, so I'm glad I made this choice).
If you're doing a lattice top, cut out your lattice (a pizza cutter makes this the easiest), if not, cut a few slits in the crust, transfer it to the top of the pie, and crimp the edges (The Four and Twenty Blackbirds Cookbook also has great instructions for crimping edges, by the way). Put the whole pie back in the fridge to chill, and preheat your oven to 400 F. Place an oven rack in the bottom third of the oven, and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil to put the pie on (I was very glad I did this last step, my pie bubbled over a good bit, and I was very glad I didn't have to clean all of that off the bottom of my oven).
Whisk together the egg and the milk (I only had cream and that's what I used, it worked fine) in a cup or small bowl. Remove the chilled pie from the fridge and brush the top with the egg mixture. Sprinkle the pie with coarse sugar, and put it on the aluminum foil lined baking sheet.
Bake for about an hour, or until the filling is bubbling in the center of the pie. Remove from the oven and cool completely on a wire rack before serving it.
Have a great weekend!
Jasmine
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