Peach Pie

Every Saturday, I visit the Red Stick Farmer’s Market at 5th and Main Street in downtown Baton Rouge for locally grown fruits, vegetables, herbs, and honeys.  The streets are always crowded with families pushing strollers between booths no matter what time I arrive, and lately, it’s been cut-throat to find my favorite bunches of kale.

But the farmer’s market is always worth the crowds because it serves up some of the best ingredients in our local kitchens. This past Saturday, the goods were no exception.  As we made our way between the over-crowded booths lining Main Street, local musicians played, children danced, and hungry shoppers swarmed the table for Plantation Pecan.  Served up front and center, baskets of ripe southern peaches (now their third week in season), tender white nectarines, and Mr. Buddy, the farm patriarch and southern character, beckoned everyone near.

Pictured: This past weekend, the season’s first nectarines cozy up nicely to Mr. Buddy’s already famous peaches.

Although I’m certain most people were there for the peaches and nectarines (I was too, I couldn’t help myself), I was definitely there for Mr. Buddy, a good natured, adorable looking older man with a passion for peaches.

To me, he’s kind of a celebrity.

Pictured: Mr. Buddy telling jokes and eating fresh peaches and nectarines with the shoppers at Red Stick Farmer’s Market.  And I quote, “you think these are good? Ask this pretty young lady about how good my nectarines are.”

Pictured: Freshly sliced white nectarines for anyone who visits the table.

Pictured: Beautiful ripe peaches perfect for Peach Pie.

After trying Mr. Buddy’s peaches, I knew they would be my favorite ingredient for the blog this week (look soon for other peach recipes from the grill and juiced).  But, for now, my easy adaptation of a homemade peach pie with an all butter crust will impress anyone you know who either a.) doesn’t like pie or b.) doesn’t like peaches.  To say this recipe is inspired may be a bit triumphant, but I’m so sure you’ll love this pie, you’ll be looking for Mr. Buddy at the next Red Stick Farmer’s Market, too.

Peach Pie with Butter Crust

This recipe has been adapted from Alanna Kellogg’s blog Kitchen Parade and her award winning (1st place!) Peach Pie.  For the filling, I’ve scaled back the sugar suggested and completely omitted the inclusion of butter here.  I’ve also used a completely different crust that uses only butter.  Both versions of this pie are brilliantly sweet and taste like summer, but for Alanna’s version, see here.

Ingredients:

—Crust—

*1 serving all butter pie crust

—Filling—

*6-8 cups ripe peaches

*3/4 cup sugar

*4 tablespoons flour

*1 teaspoon cinnamon

*1 teaspoon vanilla extract

*1 teaspoon almond extract

*1 egg, beaten

*1 tablespoon sugar

1.) Slice peaches away from the pit making sure to keep skins on (this is Alanna’s tip for an excellent homemade peach pie).  The aesthetic nature of your slices matter little, just make sure to cut them into even levels of thickness (for me, this means 1/4-inch thick slices).

2.) Place peaches in a nonstick saucepan with sugar, flour, and cinnamon, and rest for about 20-30 minutes or until a natural syrup forms.

3.) Warm saucepan over medium heat stirring in extracts when mixture becomes bubbly.  Remove from heat and rest while you prepare the pie crust.

4.) Preheat oven to 425F.  Roll out discs of pie crust on a well-floured surface and transfer to a pie pan.  Press dough down evenly into pan and instead of trimming off dough excess, roll up hanging dough into a thick crust to fill the pan’s edges (you will fill in any gaps in the crust when placing the latice-top over the filling).

5.) Transfer peach filling to pie and spread out evenly over pie crust.

6.) Roll out second disc of dough and using a pastry wheel like this one. . .

. . .and slice long even layers of lattice at about 1-inch thick.

7.) Create lattice-top crust: place 4 strips running left to right over the top of the filling and four strips running up and down on top.  If feeling fancy, weave every other strip under and over the following strips in the pattern pictured above.  For help with this technique, watch video here.  Finally, take extra dough and fill in any gaps with the pie crust by pressing excess dough into empty spots and meshing with existing crust (if you’re lucky, you’ll use all of your pie dough like me).

8.) Paint lattice top with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar.  Bake pie for 10 minutes at 425F and drop heat to 350F.  Bake pie for an additional 25-35 minutes or until crust is golden brown.  Remove from oven and cool.

Serve with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, or by itself.  Makes 6-8 servings.

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This recipe was re-published for my “Fresh Ideas” Column for Louisiana’s state newspaper, The Advocate, on Thursday, August 15th, 2012.  You can read the reprint here.

–Helana Brigman

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