Evan’s Plainly Delicious Peach Pie

PIE-A-DAY #59

Sometimes an ingredient is so superb that to gussie it up would be a shame. For example, if you’re lucky enough to be a friend of Farmers Market Maven Amelia Saltsman who wants to give you a flat of the most famous peaches in California. Peach Farmer David Mas Masumoto, author of Epitaph for a Peach has a tree adoption program. Amelia adopted a tree and now goes to the farm each year to harvest her peaches. This year the harvest was enough to share.

What luck!

When I picked up my Elberta Peaches the perfume hit me in the face. The Elberta is a super meaty freestone peach perfect for canning, jamming, pie making, and eating over the sink. Was it going to be jam or pie? Pie won. Big surprise. So I held back my inclination to tweek. Was I going to add that ½

basket of Pudwill raspberries I had in the refrigerator? No. Was I going to make an almond crust or an amaretti crumble top? No. This is Plainly Delicious Peach Pie.

Keep reading for the recipe…

6 cups peaches

Enough sugar to sweeten to taste (approximately 6 tablespoons)

Squeeze of Lemon Juice

Tiny Pinch Cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon Vanilla Powder, or a tiny dribble of vanilla extract

Pinch of Salt

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Preheat oven to 425º.

Roll out bottom crust and settle it in the pie pan.

Bring water to boil in small saucepan. Dip peaches into boiling water for a count of ten then lift them out and submerge in bowl of ice water. Slip the skins off and slice the peaches 1/2”-3/4” thick into a bowl. Add the sugar, lemon juice cinnamon, vanilla, salt and thickener of your choice. Gently mix. Pour into prepared pie pan.

Roll top crust and place atop peaches. Trim and crimp the crust. Cut 4 slits into the top crust being sure the vents are open enough that they won’t close up again. Peaches are very juicy so there will be a lot of steam as the pie cooks, and the steam needs to be properly vented.

Place the pie in the preheated oven and bake for approximately 1 hour, covering pie loosely with foil if browning occurs too early. Pie is done when thickened juices flow and fruit is tender.

Now this is the hard part. Let the pie cool down before you eat it! That way you’ll give the thickened juices time to set. Although delicious when barely warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, peach pie is wonderful at room temperature for breakfast.