I love fruit, and I also love making those babies into delicious, fruity summer pie recipes.
All summer long, I take those innocent, perfect-just-the-way-they are summer fruits -and do the unthinkable: I impart them with sugar, toss them in a pastry crust of flour and butter and bake them in my oven, waiting eagerly for that familiar aroma of a dessert I sense I should feel guilty about eating or serving.
Except I don’t feel guilty at all. That's because it’s still fruit in there, and I’m just adding a little sugar and starch. And if you’re feeding people who would complain that “just fruit is not dessert, mom”, well, at least summer fruit pies beat your typical cakes and cookies in terms of nutritional value.
You want to make a pie now, don’t you? You know you do.
It’s okay. I understand, believe me, I do. And I won’t judge (unless you’re contemplating using a store-bought pie crust, which infuses unsuspecting pies with a salty, chemical taste). I’ll even help.
I’ll begin with revealing my “Perfect Pie Crust” recipe. I know that some people are intimidated by the idea of making a pie crust, believing it relies on some sort of wizardry involving the temperature of your kitchen and knowing the next time it will rain. I’m here to debunk that bunk. For my recipe, you just need to follow the directions.
Perfect Pie Crust:
· 2 sticks unsalted butter, chopped into cubes; freeze half, refrigerate the other.
· 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
· 1 teaspoon salt
· 2 teaspoons sugar
· ½ cup ice-cold water
a. In a food processor, pulse flour, salt, sugar and refrigerated butter: 10 times.
b. Add frozen butter. Pulse 10 times – it should look like crumbs and lumps.
c. Add the water. Pulse 10 more times. It should still look like crumbs.
d. Divide crumbs in half. Empty each onto a large piece of plastic wrap. Bring edges together like a satchel to form the crumbs into dough. Smooth into a hockey-puck-shaped disk. Refrigerate.
Now, stir together the ingredients for one of the following fruit fillings:
1. Cherry
· 4 and ½ cups of Bing cherries, pitted, some halved.
· ½ cup sugar
· ¼ cup flour
2. Peach:
4 ½ cups of peaches, peeled, pitted and sliced in wedges (about 8 peaches)
· ¾ cup sugar (any combination of white and/or brown)
· ¼ cup flour
· Optional spices: ¼ teaspoon of any or all of cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg)
3. Berry (your choice!)
· 4 ½ cups of berries
· ½ cup sugar
· ¼ cup of flour
· If blueberry, add three tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice
Finally, assemble and bake:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a pie pan. Allow fruit mixture to stand 15 minutes to release excess liquids. Put pan on cookie sheet. Roll out dough to 12-inch circles and lay one in pie pan. Add your filling, including a small amount of liquid, but discard most of the liquid. Cover with remaining dough circle; crimp. Cut eight slashes in the top at even intervals (marking servings, and allowing steam to escape).
Bake for 45 minutes with a piece of foil gently laid over the pie (to keep the crust from burning). Then bake without foil until juices bubble up and crust is golden – usually another 25-30 minutes.
Cool (allowing filling to thicken).
Savor!
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