Peach Raspberry Pie
Time this year seems to have a different weight to it, doesn’t it? I find myself often pausing for a millisecond to remember what month we’re in (time seems to have halted around March, in my estimation) and I find it hard to believe we’re already nearing the end of August. This, for a couple of reasons: the fact that my usual markers for the year were all cancelled (no celebrating holidays, no family visiting, no travels to Rhode Island) undoubtedly makes the year a little blurry. Much of my usual focus in a typical year (personal goals! travel! cooking classes!) has taken a backseat to things like numbers of cases, progress in Italy and abroad, evaluating the safety of public transport, and making sure I don’t leave the house without a face mask. Working from home makes keeping track of the days difficult as well, somehow – a workweek spent consistently on my couch seems to somehow keep the days uniform, one running in to another.
Summer in particular seems to have flown; while I’d usually be preparing to mourn the end of my favorite season right about now – you’d have read my annual lament on the changing temperatures and shorter days – I don’t feel so strongly about summer ending this year, more eager to get closer to 2021 and leave 2020 behind. Anyone else experiencing this phenomenon?
In this weird time-warp of a year then, I found myself already nearing the end of August and realizing that I had yet to post my usual crumble, crisp, cobbler, or pie – you know, that time of year where I post a wholly American dessert featuring the season’s finest, like this Plum Cobbler (2015) this Blueberry Pie (2016) this this Peach Cobbler (2017) this Nectarine Blueberry Crumble (2018) or this Apricot Berry Crisp (2019). While desserts falling in to this category obviously vary, I find that they all have a few common denominators that bind them together. There’s the fruit of course, baked at a lively bubble until juicy and yielding; pastry of some form to simultaneously contain any juice and compliment said fruit; the fact that all are best eaten warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, a simple addition that elevates any fruit dessert, the ice cream melting in to a puddle of vanilla rivets that trickle over the jammy fruit and crisp pastry, adding not only a hint of extra sweetness but also a welcome temperature contrast, ice cold against oven-warm.
(Who know a scoop of Haagen-Dazs could be so important, right?)
In 2020 the seasonal-fruit-dessert-honor goes to a Peach Raspberry Pie, a dessert good enough to make you (momentarily) forget the strangeness of this year so far. So: the great thing here is that the pie dough requires zero rolling out (a task often fraught with torn pastry, butter in the dough that begins to panic and melt, followed by the outrageous request that once you’ve successfully maneuvered your pastry unscathed into the pie dish, that you then crimp it decoratively, the nerve). None of that nonsense here! Here we simply mix the pastry ingredients together in a bowl and pat the resulting dough in to a pie dish, making this a stress-free sort of pie, just what we need in a year like 2020. Like its accompanying crust, the filling is a little something different, too – rarely do we see raspberries in pies, but it turns out they offer a grounding note of tartness to the sweet peaches, becoming lovely and jammy once baked and adding a splash of color, while they’re at it. Since we’re not bothering with rolling out pastry, the topping is a crumble (think of this as a pie/crumble hybrid – a prumble? crie?) which is slightly cinnamon-y and barely sweet so as to not compete with the peaches. Most importantly of all, the topping comes together along in the same bowl as the pie dough.
This pie was spectacular, one that cut beautifully (no messy slices!) and was, as expected, divine eaten warm, and as not so readily expected, was downright refreshing eaten cold out of the fridge (in this regard, I would also like to add that that fruit fruit – even when served in a pie – is always a respectable breakfast item).
Bottom line: a dessert that is no fuss, easy, and delicious, and proof that even a bizarre year like 2020 still is deserving of pie.
(Just maybe with two scoops of ice cream instead of one).
A couple of notes: You can substitute blueberries for raspberries here if you like, or nectarines for peaches. This would probably work well with plums, too. Letting the pie rest here is essential to getting a clean slice and is worth the wait (plus less mess) so do stick to the two hour wait time if you can. If you don’t have any ice cream on hand, whipped cream or a dollop of yogurt would be nice here, too. Finally, I changed the recipe a bit as written; I reduced the sugar to 3/4 cup, but it can be upped to 1 cup (200 grams) as it was in the original recipe/if you like a sweeter pie. I also used 3 cups of raspberries instead of the 4 recommended because that’s all I had, and slightly reduced the cornstarch to 5.5 tablespoons instead of 6 in light of this. Feel free to use therefore more raspberries and slightly more cornstarch, if you’d like. Having said all this, the pie as I made it was perfect.
Looking for other peach recipes? I’ve got these Honey Glazed Cinnamon Peaches, this Peach Cobbler, these Peach Pancakes, this (Nectarine) Blueberry Crumble, and Fried Eggplant, Tomato, Peach Salad. !
PEACH RASPBERRY PIE
Makes (1) pie serving about 10. Recipe adapted from Bon Appetit Magazine.
Ingredients for the crust and crumb topping:
2 1/2 cups (300 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for surface
1 teaspoon (5 grams) salt
1/4 cup (50 grams) sugar, divided
3/4 cup (168 grams) unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon (14 grams) apple cider vinegar
Ingredients for the filling:
1 1/2 pounds (680 grams) ripe yellow peaches (about 4 medium)
3 cups (360 grams) raspberries
3/4 cup (175 grams) sugar*
5.5 tablespoons (41 grams) cornstarch
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon (a good pinch) salt
9 inch (22 cm) pie pan
Directions:
Start with the crumb crust and topping - whisk together the flour, salt, and 1 tablespoon (12.5 grams) sugar in a large bowl. Drizzle in the melted butter. Stir the mixture just to combine, but do not fully incorporate. The texture should be crumbly with some large clumps. Transfer 1 1/4 cups (loosely packed) crust mixture to a medium bowl; add cinnamon and remaining sugar. Knead with fingertips until well-combined but still crumbly with a few pea-sized pieces remaining. Place the bowl in the freezer until ready to use.
Add vinegar and two tablespoons of cold water to remaining crust mixture. Stir to form a dough, then transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead a few times until the texture is smooth. Transfer to pie pan and press into bottom and up sides with a flat-bottomed measuring cup. Crimp edge with a floured fork, if desired, and freeze while you prepare the filling.
Position 1 rack in bottom third and 1 rack in center of oven; preheat to 425°F. Place a foil-lined rimmed baking sheet on bottom rack to preheat. Next, slice the peaches into 1/4-inch-thick wedges, then transfer to a large bowl. Add the raspberries, sugar, corn starch, vanilla, and salt and toss well to combine. Fill pie crust with fruit mixture, then sprinkle with crumb topping.
Place pie on preheated sheet and bake until crust begins to turn golden, 20–25 minutes. Rotate sheet, move to center rack, and reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Continue to bake pie until crust is golden brown and thickened juices are bubbling, 35-45 minutes more; cover crust with foil or a pie shield if it begins to darken too much before juices are bubbling. Cool on a wire rack at least 2 hours to allow juices to set before slicing.
