Today on The Stay At Home Chef
I'm showing you how to make Perfect Peach Pie.
I've got a couple of tricks up my sleeve today that I'm gonna share with you for making the perfect peach pie.
You are going to love it!
To start you'll need to peel, pit, and slice 3 pounds of peaches.
Now you can always blanch your peaches to make them easier to peel,
but I find that it's a lot easier to damage your peaches that way,
and I can peel, pit, and slice 3 pounds of peaches about as fast as it takes to get a large pot of water to a boil.
Once you get all of your peaches peeled, pitted, and sliced,
you'll want to transfer them all to a large mixing bowl,
then add in 1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice,
1 cup of brown sugar,
2 tablespoons of cornstarch, which will act as a thickening agent,
1/2 a teaspoon of ground cinnamon,
1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg,
and just a pinch of salt.
Toss this all together.
Stir until all of those individual ingredients are mixed in,
and you'll notice some of the peaches are breaking up.
That's totally ok.
Then we're going to set this aside.
Next we're gonna move on to making our pie crust.
You can either do this by hand with a pastry cutter,
or today I'm gonna do it in the food processor,
which let me tell you, it's a lot easier.
You'll need 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour,
and I'm just gonna pour this into the bowl of my food processor.
You will also need 2 tablespoons of sugar, and 1 teaspoon of salt,
and we're gonna put the lid on and just give this a few quick pulses to combine.
Then it's time to add in our fat.
I find that the best most flakiest pie crust has a combination of both butter and shortening.
You want to cube your butter,
so you just slice it down in half lengthwise and then I stack them up and slice them in half lengthwise again,
and then cut into little cubes.
Cutting it into cubes will help it mix in with the flour mixture so we don't get any clumps of fat.
I'm using 12 tablespoons,
or 1 1/2 sticks,
or 3/4 cup of cold butter.
I like to give this just 4 or 5 pulses before adding in the shortening.
You want both your butter and your shortening to be super cold,
so I just measure my shortening out in a measuring cup
and pop it into the freezer for a little bit before making my pie crust.
Then just like the butter it helps if it's not all in one giant clump,
so I like to break it up a little bit with a butter knife.
It doesn't really matter how you do it and how perfect you are,
just get little clumps in there.
Then we're gonna pulse this until the mixture resembles sand or cornmeal.
You can see that it looks kind of like a sandy beach in here.
Next it's time to add in our liquids,
and I use a secret ingredient in all of my pie crusts that make them foolproof.
And that secret ingredient is vodka!
You want to pour in your vodka while it's mixing,
and don't worry, all of the alcohol will bake out of the pie crust.
So you'll need 1/4 cup of chilled vodka.
And then you'll also need 1/4 cup of chilled water,
and you can see that the dough is all coming together.
Take all the dough out of the food processor and divide it into two roughly equal pieces.
Then you'll want to wrap each dough piece in a little bit of plastic wrap
because we're gonna pop these in the fridge to chill.
The pie dough needs to chill in the fridge for 1 hour.
Luckily your peach mixture needs to sit for an hour too.
After 1 hour roll the first piece out on a lightly floured surface into a 12-inch diameter circle.
Then you're going to transfer the crust into a pie plate.
I just want it to sit down nicely in the pie plate and sometimes you have to help that along a little bit.
If you make a mistake don't worry,
you can always re-roll this crust because we used that vodka.
Now I'm not known to make pretty pies.
I go for flavor over looks and you should too.
Focus on the flavor and don't worry so much about the looks.
It's okay to have a rustic homemade looking pie.
Now with this second piece we're gonna roll it into a 10x13 rectangle.
We're gonna make a lattice top for our top crust.
Now a trick I use for measuring while cooking is to take my printed recipe,
and I know that this side is 8 1/2 inches and this side is 11 inches long,
so for 13 inches I need it to be a little bit longer than the length of my paper,
and for 10 inches it needs to be just shorter.
Then we need to cut our dough into 8 equal strips,
so cut down the middle first,
then the middle of this side,
and then each of those in half,
and you'll have 4 on this side and then 4 strips on this side.
Now if these strips of dough become difficult to work with
you can always lay them out on a baking sheet and pop them into the freezer for a few minutes to stiffen up.
Next we're ready to assemble our pie.
You'll want to drain all of the liquid from the peaches except for just 1/4 cup.
I'm just gonna pour all of my peaches through a strainer
and then pour all of those strained peaches into my pie crust.
Then you can add in that 1/4 cup of reserved juices,
but if your peaches are super ripe and juicy you may want to leave that out.
Then we can start weaving on our latticed crust,
so you'll want to lay out 4 strips on top,
and then we'll start weaving in the other direction with 4 pieces that way as well.
It's back to kindergarten when it comes to weaving.
You want to make sure that you're going every other one,
and you can use some kitchen scissors to trim off all of the excess around the edges.
Then you just want to roll in the edges,
and we'll pinch it all together in here and make our rustic little crust.
If you want to go the extra mile and make a super pretty pie,
more power to you.
Now even though our pie is rustic we want it to have a nice shiny finish,
so I'm whisking together 1 egg white with 1 tablespoon of water.
Once the egg white is all frothy you want to take a brush and brush it onto the crust.
You want to make sure you get the sides and all the edges
and get everything coated with a thin layer of the egg wash,
and then to finish off your pie you want to sprinkle on 1 tablespoon of sugar onto the crust.
Once again you want to get all of the lattice work and the edges.
Put your pie plate onto a baking sheet in case any of the liquids boil over when cooking.
Next we're gonna start this out baking in a 425 degree oven for 25 minutes.
After 25 minutes reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit
and let the pie finish baking for 30-35 minutes.
Transfer the finished pie to a wire rack to cool completely and then you're ready to eat!
Thanks for watching!
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