Veggie/Fruit a Month: Peaches - Peach Pie

   I've always loved peaches. The wonderful smell, the bright, beautiful colours of both the skin and the flesh and the flavours... and it had always been one of my biggest dreams (I have a lot of those, by the way) to make a Peach Pie.


   And here it is, a Peach Pie, to celebrate the gathering of all 7 members of my family! We're all home, and it was lovely to have ifthar together. We joked, shared stories, poked fun at each other and just enjoyed being together as a family. 


   This the fourth time I've made pie using BC's Pie and Pastry Cookbook, and I'm afraid I'm still struggling with the pastry. I cheated several times (such as cutting the rolled-out pastry in half and placing the halves one after another before pinching them together in the pan... hehe) but it turned out okay. I was afraid they wouldn't brown, that the peaches would taste weird, blablabla... but it was okay. It turned out fine.


   So here it is, my most (I think, anyway) successful pie yet. My youngest brother says it's nice warm, but KakYong and Abang think it's be good cold. Abuya gave me the thumbs-up sign, so I guess it went well. I took over an hour preparing the pie with some help from KakYong, and went it finally went into the oven I felt relieved. Well, perhaps not truly  relieved because I was worried the pie wouldn't cook... blablabla again. I'm happy to say I'm no longer so afraid of making pastry!


   So enough said, let's go to our pie, shall we? I'm including measurements for three pie sizes (8-inch, 9-inch and 10-inch) but I made a 10-inch one. Once again I've not included the recipe for the crust because like I said, I'm still struggling with it, though I know it's a good recipe because it works better than any other so far!


   My final say: This peach pie is a peach!!!

PEACH PIE

Source: Betty Crocker's Pie and Pastry Cookbook

8-INCH PIE
Pastry for 8-inch Two Crust Pie
4 cups sliced peaches (about 6 medium)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter or margarine


9-INCH PIE

Pastry for 9-inch Two Crust Pie
5 cups sliced peaches (about 8 medium)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoon butter or margarine

10-INCH PIE

Pastry for 10-inch Two Crust Pie
6 cups sliced peaches (about 10 medium)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoon butter or margarine

Heat oven to 425F/210C.


Prepare pastry.


Toss peaches and lemon juice. Stir together sugar, flour and cinnamon; mix lightly with peaches. Turn into pastry-lined pie pan; dot with butter. 


Cover with top crust (with slits, or you can a lattice top, which I did); seal and flute. Cover edge with 2- to 3-inch strip of aluminium foil to prevent excessive browning; remove foil last 15 minutes of baking. 


Bake 8- and 9-inch pies 35 to 45 minutes, 10-inch pie 40 to 50 minutes or until crust is nicely browned and juice begins to bubble through the slits in the crust. Serve with lemon sauce (recipe below).




Baker's Notes
1. If you can't get fresh peaches, you can use canned ones. I got two cans of peach halves for a good price at Mydin (around RM 5.00+ for each can) and only used one and a half cans (around 13 peach halves). Drain the peach halves or slices (keep the juice for another recipe) and decrease the sugar to half of the required quantity. 


2. We increased the quantity of cinnamon in our pie- I love cinnamon!


3. I baked my pie for 1 hour at 240C. It came out a nice, golden-brown colour and when the timer went off, some caramelised sugar/juice was beginning to seep out of the top crust.

OLD-FASHIONED LEMON SAUCE

Makes 1 1/3 cups.

*According to the book, this sauce is good for blueberry and mincemeat pies. It worked really well with the peach pie.

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/4 cup water
1 egg, well beaten
3/4 teaspoon grated lemon peel
3 tablespoons lemon juice


In saucepan combine all ingredients. Heat to boiling over medium heat, stirring constantly. Serve warm or cool. Store sauce in covered container in refrigerator.




Baker's Notes
1. We had 3/4 of a lemon left, so we put all of that in instead of just 3 tablespoons.
2. I decreased the sugar to 1/3 cup.
3. The sauce firmed up a little too much while it was sitting in the fridge, so we just added a little hot water and it worked fine.

   I'm submitting this recipe for the Veggie/Fruit a Month, an event created by  Priya of Mharo Rajasthan's Recipes. The event is hosted monthly by a different person/blog with a different fruit or veggie, and this month the host is Susan from the Well-Seasoned Cook and the theme is Peaches! (I hope I've put all the links properly- still trying to get used to this!)

   I'm also submitting this to the August Bookmarked Recipes hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes. The event was originally created by Ruth from Ruth's Kitchen Experiments. (I meant to join last month but didn't quite have the nerve). I've bookmarked this recipe ever since I started reading the book, so I hope it counts! 


p.s. Uploading photos takes ages! Pheww!!!