Peach Purse Pie

Peaches seem to be coming into their own right now. I think they are a tiny bit early, but that is probably due to the hot weather we have been having and to the drought. A couple of nights ago I had some really ripe peaches on hand and some refrigerated pie dough circles, so I made a quick gallette, which is really just a disc of dough rolled out a bit more and folded over the fruit. Because you don't have to fit the crust into a pie plate, nor seal and crimp a top crust, it is a really speedy way to go and it makes a pie that looks a lot like a draw string purse. I love the folds of dough that result and the rustic look of it, too.

This is another one of those not-really-a-recipe-exactly recipes.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. If you have a baking stone, put it on an upper shelf, but make sure the shelf is low enough to allow for the pie.

Take the dough for a one-crust pie. If you are using the refrigerated stuff, just warm it up a bit and spread it out on a piece of parchment paper. Use a rolling pin to roll it out a little more into a circle about 11 or 12 inches in diameter. If you are being wise and using real pie dough, roll it out into a circle about 11 or 12 inches in diameter on a piece of parchment paper.

Prepare your fruit as you usually would for a pie. I like my peaches peeled, but my nectarines not peeled. Be sure to get rid of the pits and to slice the fruit. Sprinkle with some flour if your peaches are really juice and then toss lightly and gently. Sprinkle with some ground nutmeg. If the peaches are not really sweet, sprinkle with some sugar.

Pile the fruit in the center of the rolled out dough. Fold the dough up around the fruit. The excess dough will fall into folds.

Take an egg and beat it in a small bowl with a teaspoon of water. Brush the pastry with this mixture using a pastry brush. Sprinkle top with sparkling (sanding) sugar if you like.

Bake on the baking stone or slide the parchment and pie carefully onto a baking sheet and put in the oven. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the fruit juices are bubbly.

Remove from oven and cool 10 minutes on a rack. Serve warm or let cool longer and serve cool.

Note: if fruit is really juicy, use a pan with sides under the pie, even if using the baking stone. A pizza pan or sheet pan works well. No one enjoys cleaning spilled peach juice from the oven bottom.

Summer Simple Pie

There are all kinds of pies but, by their nature, pies are approachable. A butter cream embellished multi-layered cake is fancy and fine, but pies are usually much more simple. A pie like the one I made a few days ago is simplicity itself...one crust, a mixture of fruit dusted with some flour to help thicken the juices, a brush of milk over the finished crust for color and a sprinkle of sparkling sugar for crunch. Even simpler would be to make it with one kind of fruit. If that fruit were, for instance, blueberries, then there is no peeling or cutting; no prep to speak of except of washing the berries and drying them off a bit.

I had fresh, ripe peaches on hand which only required peeling and cutting into curved slices. The pits and skins went into the wet garbage, but could also go into the compost pile. Strawberries needed to be hulled and some were large enough that I cut them in half. Blackberries from the bushes down the driveway were rinsed along with the blueberries and allowed to drain and air dry a bit while I prepared the crust.

Although I can make a delightful pie crust from scratch, if I'm going for simple I use a ready made crust. I use the rolling pin to flatten and enlarge it about another two inches all around. Then it goes onto a piece of parchment paper. This time I should have put that paper on a rimmed baking sheet because all of the fruit was very juicy. Even with the flour added I had too much juice seeping from the pie. That juice ended up spilling off of the parchment paper as I removed the pie from the oven. Hot fruit juice went all over the oven! It cleaned up nicely once the oven cooled, but I felt foolish for not containing the pie to avoid the spill.

The finished pie is rustic to look at but very, very tasty. Such a summery mix! Peaches, blueberries, blackberries and strawberries, barely held together with crisp pastry. Each slice had some of the fruit juices from the parchment paper, too. We could have embellished it with whipped cream or ice cream, but it truly didn't need that. It was a simple summer pie and a true seasonal delight.

Simple Summer Pie

1/2 pint fresh strawberries, rinsed,drained, hulled and sliced in half if large
3-4 ripe peaches, peeled, pit removed, and sliced...about 8 slices per peach
1/2 pint ripe blackberries, rinsed and drained
1/4 pint ripe blueberries, rinsed and drained
3-4 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 prepared pie crust round (I use Pillsbury ReadyCrust)
1-2 tablespoons milk
1-2 tablespoons sparkling sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

In a large bowl gently combine the strawberries, peach slices, blackberries and blueberries. Sprinkle with the flour and nutmeg and gently toss the fruit until it absorbs the flour. Set aside.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pie crust round to about 11 or 12 inches in diameter. Place on a sheet of parchment paper. Place parchment paper on a rimmed baking sheet. Pour the prepared fruit mixture in the middle of the crust and mound it, leaving the outer 2-3 inches without fruit. Fold the outer 2-3 inches of crust up over the mounded fruit, pleating as necessary to bring it over the fruit. If needed, use a finger dipped in clear water to lightly wet the pastry at the folds, so that the pastry sticks together.

Use a pastry brush to brush the milk over the crust and sprinkle, if desired, with sparkling sugar. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, then turn heat down to 375 degrees F. and continue to bake until juices bubble and pastry is golden brown.

Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes on a cooling rack before serving. Serves 4-6.

Strawberry Moon

Summer is still with us, in warm breezes and hot afternoon sun, sultry evenings on the porch, and ripe fruit, too.

On this past Saturday, plain Jane strawberries were transformed by my amazing daughter into boozy, juicy Moonshine Strawberries by the judicious addition of some Strawberry Moonshine, a bit of sugar, and a touch of lemon zest.

On Sunday we enjoyed a summery dessert of butter pound cake slices, softly whipped cream and some of those slightly softened and decadent, just-sweet-enough strawberries. The alcohol had dispersed by then but it added a hint of daring to this lovely dish. There was a tang of lemon here and there to add interest.You could make this with peaches or nectarines, instead and it would still be wonderful.

Moonshine Strawberries Shortcake

2 pints hulled, sliced strawberries
1 shot glass of Strawberry Moonshine
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon zest
1 teaspoon sugar
1 pint heavy cream
1 loaf pound cake

Combine the strawberries, moonshine, lemon zest and sugar. Let sit in the 'fridge overnight.

In a chilled bowl with chilled beaters or whisk, whisk the cream until soft peaks form. If desired, add a bit of sugar towards the end.

When ready to serve, slice the pound cake. Place a slice on each dessert plate, spoon on some of the strawberries and their juices, dollop on some whipped cream and put a bit more of the strawberries on top. Serve at once.

Pie

A few years ago my nephew and sister interviewed my Mom, asking her questions about many things, including how things were when she was growing up. One of the things I remember from her answers was her description of food shopping in New York City. She lived in the Bronx in an apartment and this was before there were super markets. Instead of a huge store with all kinds of foods for sale, there were lots of small stores that specialized in meat, staples like beans and rice and flour and sugar, fruit and vegetable sellers, and so on. She mentioned that people generally didn't bake much because it was so convenient to by baked goods at bakeries. The exception in her family was pies. Her mother apparently made great pies. I think she inherited that skill because my Mom makes exceptional pies. My Dad's favorite dessert was always fruit pies, with the fruit changing according to what was in season.

I enjoy making pies, too, especially small pies. It isn't that I don't enjoy full sized pies, but there is something winsome about a personal pie, sized just for one. Sometimes I make mini-galettes, a kind of open faced little freeform pie, made without a pie pan. Sometimes I use a tart pan and make small tarts. A favorite is hand pies where you fold the dough over the filling and seal it...and it is always a small pie to fit your hand. Today I made some mini-galettes and one hand pie (although the hand pie was a bit larger than usual).

I used the apricots that Sweetie bought out on Highway 12 from the strawberry farm for some of the galettes. I used some plums from our tree for others. The hand pie had sliced strawberries from that farm near the Grange.

They all had 'moondust' on the bottom to soak up the fruit juices that are released when the fruit heats up.

It's a combination of almond flour and amaretti crumbs which give a nice almond accent to the fruit, plus flour and sugar. It's one of the secrets from Chez Panisse. When baking the galettes or hand pies, it's also helpful to use a baking or pizza stone if you have one because, for these small pies, the crust is just amazing! It's tender, buttery, and flaky. If you bake the pies on the hot stone in a hot oven the bottom crust is also nicely crisp.

When I was a girl and wanted to learn how to make pies, the first thing I had to do was to read about 6 pages in The Settlement House Cookbook on making pie crust dough. Then my Mom quizzed me on what I had read. That may seem like a bit much, but , truly, pie crust dough making is all about technique. Too much working of the dough and it gets tough. Too little water and it is hard to roll out. Too warm a water and the butter starts to change consistency, so you lose the flakiness. I like this Galette Dough recipe from Chez Panisse because they divide the butter and cut 1/3 of it in very fine for tenderness, then cut in the rest so that butter pieces are larger, for flakiness.

This crust is phenomenal. If you follow the recipe carefully you will have mini-galettes (or a large galette if you prefer) that everyone will rave over. If you pack them carefully you will have an excellent dessert for any picnic or for 4th of July gatherings. For the 4th you can combine white peaches, blueberries and raspberries for the fruit. Just remember to make extra because one barely seems like enough...they are that good! You can even think fondly of my grandmother when you bake yours...I do.

Now don't be shy. You can make a cherry pie, or an apricot one, or peach, nectarine, raspberry, blackberry and so on. It's the perfect time of year for it and here is the perfect recipe.

Fruit Galette
An open face tart/pie with fruit filling, from Chez Panisse Fruit
10 oz. galette dough, rolled into a 14-inch circle ( or into 4 6-inch circles for mini galettes), and chilled (see recipe below)
1/4 cup almond-amaretti powder (see recipe below)
1 1/2 pounds ripe fruit, single or a mixture.
                Apricot, nectarine, peach, plum, pluot, apple, cherry, or any kind of berry are all good
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Place a pizza stone, if you have one, on a lower rack.

Remove the prerolled dough from the refrigerator or freezer and place on a buttered or parchment-lined baking sheet. Evenly sprinkle the almond-amaretti powder over the pastry, leaving a 1 1/2 -inch border unsprinkled. (For mini-galettes, leave about 1 inch unsprinkled.)

Cut the fruit in half, quarters, or slices, making sure to remove any pits. Peel fruit if desired. Arrange the fruit (skin side down if there is skin) in concentric circles on the dusted dough, making a single layer of snugly touching fruit pieces and leaving the border bare.

Sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar over the fruit evenly. (For the mini-galettes, use 1 tablespoon sugar, sprinkled, for each of 4 mini-galettes.) (Note: my fruit was so ripe that I used about 1/4 teaspoon per mini-galette.) While rotating the tart, fold the border of exposed dough up and over itself at regular intervals, crimping and pushing it up against the outer circle of fruit, creating a containing rim that resembles a length of rope. Pinch off any excess dough. This rim must act as a dam, preventing juices from escaping while cooking, so make sure there are no folds or wrinkles that would permit such a breach. Brush the border gently with melted butter and sprinkle it with 2 tablespoons of sugar. (For mini-galettes, create the rope border, as described above, for each one, brush with melted butter and sprinkle each with 2 teaspoons sugar.) (Note: I didn't create the rope, just folded the dough into pleats as I went around the galette.)

Bake in the lower third of the oven, preferably on a pizza stone) for about 45 - 50 minutes (25 - 30 for the mini-galettes), until the crust is well browned and its edges are slightly caramelized. As soon as the galette is out of the oven, use a large metal spatula to slide it off the baking sheet or parchment paper and onto a cooling rack. This keeps the pastries from steaming and getting soggy. Let cool for 20 minutes.

If desired, glaze the tart by brushing with melted, strained jam or jelly. Apricot or apple is traditional for light fruits, raspberry or currant for darker fruits. Let the glaze set before serving the tart(s).

 

 Almond-Amaretti Powder (Moondust)

1/4 cup ground almonds
1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup amaretti, pulverized

Toss all the ingredients together. Stored in an airtight container in the fridge, this keeps for a few months. One galette uses 1/4 cup (1/4th) of this recipe.

Galette Dough

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
7 tablespoons ice water

Follow the directions carefully. This is one of those recipes where the technique and quantities really affect the outcome.

Combine the flour, sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl. Cut 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) of the small dice of  butter into the flour mixture with a pastry blender, mixing until the dough resembles coarse cornmeal. (Butter is dispersed throughout the flour in tiny pieces makes the dough tender.)

Cut in the remaining 8 tablespoons (1 stick) of the small dice of butter with the pastry blender, just until the biggest pieces of butter are the size of large peas - or a little larger. (These bigger pieces of butter in the dough make it flaky.)

Dribble 7 tablespoons of ice water (that's 1/2 cup less 1 tablespoon) into the flour mixture in several stages, tossing and mixing between additions, until the dough just holds together. Toss the mixture with your hands, letting it fall through your fingers. Do not pinch or squeeze the dough together or you will overwork it, making it tough. Keep tossing the mixture until it starts to pull together; it will look rather ropy, with some dry patches. If it looks like there are more dry patches than ropy parts, add another tablespoon of water and toss the mixture until it comes together.

Divide the dough in half, firmly press each half into a ball, and wrap tightly in plastic wrap, pressing down to flatten each ball into a 4-inch disk. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before rolling out. (The dough will keep in the freezer for a few weeks.)

When you are ready to roll out the dough, take one disk from the refrigerator at a time. Let it soften slightly so that it is malleable, but still cold. Unwrap the dough and press the edges of the disk so that there are no cracks. On a lightly floured surface roll out the disk into a 14-inch circle about 1/8 inch thick. Brush off excess flour from both sides with a dry pastry brush. Transfer the dough to a parchment-lined baking sheet and refrigerate at least 1/2 hour before using. (the rolled-out circles can be frozen and used the next day.)

Makes about 20 oz. dough, enough for 2 open galettes or tarts or 1 covered tart or 12 mini galettes.