Top 100 Cake Blog

Top 100 Cake Blog

Monday, August 18, 2014

How Not to Make a Peach Pie



You know that saying: Listen to your gut?  On Saturday, I didn't and ended up with a disappointing mess of a peach pie (though a night in the refrigerator somewhat improved things).

It all began at the farmer's market, where I purchased some gorgeous peaches intending to make a peach cobbler for that night's barbecue.  But after discovering that I had made (and written about) peach cobbler three times, decided to bake those beauties into a pie. I couldn't find a hand-written recipe in my collection, but I did find the next best thing: a clipped recipe from an old newspaper carefully glued to a recipe card.

The venture began well.  I dropped the peaches (in batches) into boiling water for a minute or two, so as to loosen their skins . . .


which slipped off easily after running the fruit under some cold water.


I sliced the peaches and


after coating them with sugar, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg, placed them in a pastry-lined pie pan.


And then, against every instinct I had, I followed the recipe and poured nearly one cup of cream mixed with a beaten egg over the peaches.  Pie bakers know that one adds thickener (flour, tapioca, cornstarch, etc.) to fruit pies to absorb the juices released from fruit -- and here this recipe called for adding liquid, and a lot of it! Can anyone say counter-intuitive?

The liquid poured out of the shell faster than I could contain it. You can see below just a bit of the mess it created.  I was too busy trying to stop the flood from reaching the floor to take more pictures, but you get the idea.


I couldn't serve the pie that night.  It was still very warm from the oven, so I quickly made chocolate chip cupcakes with milk chocolate frosting (subject of a future post).

Even after a night cooling on the counter, the pie was still quite liquid-y inside.  That didn't prevent me from eating quite a lot of it.  And it had firmed up nicely after a night in the fridge. Still...


Production notes:  Follow this recipe, but don't add any liquid!


Some of our barbecue guests holding the pie, which they didn't even get to sample.


3 comments:

  1. Take a look at this recipe for swamp pie on Food52: https://food52.com/recipes/13158-raspberry-swamp-pie

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  2. I think all the peaches are gone where I live, but I'm not sure. We bought some a month ago and took them up north so my grandma could make her peach pie (which won a blue ribbon at her local fair:-) I want to hear more about the chocolate chip cupcakes. I'm planning to buy more chocolate chips soon and am trying to decide which recipes to use them for. Thanks!

    Vintage Baker

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  3. This is a really honest post, I appreciate that! I'm making a peach pie this week and will definitely learn from your post. Thanks!

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