To stay connected while we shelter in place, our employees have been sharing their favorite recipes with each other. We thought it would be fun to share them with you, too! Here’s a recipe for Peach Pie from Jessica Morton. Jessica is our Manager who experiments with flavor both in the lab – and at home.
“I’ve been cooking from scratch as long as I can remember,” Jessica shares. “I grew up in the middle of farm country without any neighbors, so naturally I would hang out in the kitchen with my mom and watch her cook. I started helping her bake at a young age, and then my passion for flavor just sort of evolved from there.”
At Blue Pacific, one of our all-time favorite natural fruit flavors is peach! There’s just something so familiar and comforting about how the juicy, creamy, and delicate tree blossom notes of a ripe yellow peach marry with its mellow acidity and honeyed sweetness. A flaky pie crust is one of the best canvases for showing off peach flavor (other than biting into a fresh-picked organic peach). Bake it and see!
Jessica’s Peach Pie
Recipe Credit: Joy of Cooking (Rombauer, Becker, & Becker 1997)
Ingredients:
- 1 double crust Flaky Pastry Dough (recipe below)
- 2 (12 oz.) bags frozen sliced peaches
- 3/4 c. sugar
- 3 tbsp. cornstarch
- 3 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp. salt
- 3 tbsp. cold unsalted butter
- 2 tbsp. milk
- 2 tsp. sugar (for sprinkling on the crust)
Instructions:
Put frozen peaches into a medium-sized mixing bowl. Add sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, cinnamon, and salt. Stir to combine. Allow to thaw at room temperature for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
Move the oven rack to the lower-third of the oven and preheat to 425°F. Grease a 9-in glass pie dish. On a lightly floured surface and using a floured wooden rolling pin, roll half of the dough into a 13-in round. Lay gently into the bottom of the pie dish. Trim off any excess dough from the edges, leaving enough overhang to fold in with the top layer of dough.
Spoon peach mixture evenly into the pie dish. Cut cold butter into small pea-sized chunks and dot the surface of the peaches with it. Set aside.
Roll out the other half of the dough into a 13-in round. Gently lay it on top of the pie dish. Turn the edges of the top crust over the overhanging edges of the bottom crust to make a seal.
Using two forefingers of one hand and your index knuckle of the other, create flutes (creases) every half inch around the pie by pinching the edge of the dough around your knuckle (working from the inside out, as in your knuckle should be pointed away from the interior of the pie).
Brush the surface of the pie with milk and sprinkle with the two teaspoons of the remaining sugar. Transfer pie to preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes. Slip a baking sheet underneath the pie, reduce heat to 350°F, and bake for another 30 minutes or until the crust is golden and the juices in the pie are bubbling. Remove from oven and cool for at least 30 minutes on a wire rack before serving.
Peach pie is best eaten warm from the oven the day it was made but it will be just as good the next day stored at room temperature…if there’s any left!
Yield: 1 (9-in) pie
Flaky Pastry Dough
Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp. powdered sugar
- 1 tsp. Salt
- 1 c. solid vegetable shortening (chilled in the freezer for at least 1 hour)
- 1/3 c. + 1 tbsp. ice water
Instructions:
Combine flour, sugar, and salt in the bowl of the food processor and mix for 10 seconds. cut the shortening into 1/2-in sized chunks and distribute evenly over the top of the dry ingredients. Pulse in very short bursts of 1-2 seconds until the fat is evenly cut into pea-sized pieces.
With the machine turned off, drizzle the ice water evenly over the top of the dry ingredients. Pulse until no dry patches remain and the dough starts to clump into small balls. Add 1-2 tablespoons more ice water if necessary. Do not mix the dough so much that it forms into a full ball in the mixer, leave it a little bit loose. Gather the dough into your hands and gently shape into two equally sized discs. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before rolling.
Yield: Pastry for 1 double-crust (9-in) or 2 single-crust (9-in) pies
Jessica’s mom Marianne Morton (and her dog Timmy!) with one of her beautiful handcrafted peach pies
Everyone – including Mila! – loves peach pie hot from the oven.
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