Yippee, it’s peach season and time for that quintessential dessert: peach pie.
I’ve been baking up a storm in this genre – okay, I’ve made two pies in the past week – with great results. As with many cooking coups, the first excellent pie I made was the result of a happy accident. I ran out of flour while making Julia Child’s amazingly foolproof and delectable food processor dough and had to improvise. This meant patting the too-moist dough that was impossible to roll into a 12-inch pizza pan, then folding the edges over my peach mixture to make what is called a free-form pie or galette. The result was sensational. It was quickly devoured by assembled family and friends accompanied by PC vanilla Chocolate Fudge Crackle ice cream and drizzled with my home-made red currant sauce, all to rave reviews. Here’s the recipe.
Peach Galette Recipe
Dough:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp granulated sugar
3/4 cup diced cold butter
1/4 cup cold vegetable shortening or lard
6 to 8 tbsp iced water
Peach filling:
About 6 cups sliced peaches
½ cup light brown or organic cane sugar
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 tbsp lemon juice
Glaze and garnish:
1 egg, beaten with a little milk
About ½ cup sliced almonds
For dough, combine flour and sugar in food processor. Add butter; pulse 5 to 6 times to break up butter roughly. Add vegetable shortening; pulse a few times or until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Gradually add water through feeder tube until mixture begins to clump. Form dough into ball; wrap in plastic wrap and chill about 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350F.
For filling, combine all ingredients in large bowl.
Roll out dough on floured surface to about 13 inches in diameter. Place on 12-inch round pizza or other baking pan. Mound peach mixture in middle of dough leaving about 2 inches of dough around it. Fold edges of dough, pleating if necessary, on top of peaches. Brush edges of dough with egg mixture. Sprinkle almonds on top of peach mixture.
Bake in oven about 45 to 50 minutes or until pie is golden brown. Serve with ice cream and drizzle with red currant or raspberry sauce.
Makes about 8 servings.
