Peach Pie

I baked this pie for our 4th of July picnic in Prospect Park (along with super awesome cider braised pork shoulder which I shredded and served as tacos.)

I experimented a bit with the pie. First, I read somewhere that there's no reason why we shouldn't pre-bake pie crust even with fruit pies in order to get crispier shell. So I pre-baked the crust for about 15 minutes before filling and then baked for 40 minutes more.

The result: Meh. I didn't get any crispier or flakier shell. So, no pre-baked pie crust in my future fruit pies.



Second, I was wondering why we only use cold water in the pie dough. Why don't we use buttermilk? My wise friend, Hannah, said it's because we want all the liquid to evaporate leaving flaky crust from layers of fat and flour. I argued that buttermilk is acidic and it can prevent gluten from forming in the dough which makes the crust tough. So I used buttermilk instead of water.

The result: The crust wasn't as flaky as usual. Maybe buttermilk has leftover residue that affected the crust texture. Hannah was right.



Finally, I didn't add any spice to the fruit (about 6 pounds of peaches) - just 1/4 cup sugar, zest of a lemon plus half the juice and 3 tablespoons of flour to thicken. I thought the filling came out great - a little tart and not at all watery to which a few people agreed and a few didn't. Hannah said the balance of sweet and tart was just right but she preferred more juicy pie. My friend, Tim, said the filling was way too sour. Not tart. Just SOUR! Dude has sweet tooth...



Anyway, by the end of the day, the whole pie was gone. I didn't even have to sell it to hard.

Peach and Strawberry Crisp

I love fruit season. Just this week I consumed (or caused other people to consume) 5 pounds of peaches, 2 pounds of apricots, 4 pounds of strawberries and 2 pounds of blueberries. In this crisp, I used 6 peaches and about 2 cups of strawberries but I imagine any combination of stone fruit and berries will come out as delicious.



Ingredients

• 6 peaches - pitted and cut into small chunks (with peel)


• 2 cups strawberries - hulled and quartered


• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour


• 1/4 cup Agave nectar


• 1 cup whole wheat flour


• 1 cup rolled oats


• 1/2 cup toasted wheat germ


• 1/4 cup sugar


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 4 tablespoons chilled butter


• 1 teaspoon vinegar


• 4 tablespoons cold milk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.


2. In a large bowl, combine peaches and strawberries with 2 tablespoons flour and Agave nectar.


3. In a separate bowl, combine whole wheat flour, oats, wheat germ, sugar and salt. Cut in butter. Mix vinegar with milk. Sprinkle over the mixture and rub in by hands until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Vinegar will prevent the wheat gluten to develop too much.


4. Transfer the fruit into a large enough baking dish. I used 2.2 quart Pyrex dish. Sprinkle the batter over and bake for 50 minutes.

Peach Tart

I'm not sure what the difference between pies and tarts is - other than the fancy pan. Well - there's more sugar in tart crust but almost everything else is the same.

Anyway - I made a tart because Hannah came over with a tart pan (actually we went shopping together and she got a tart pan) and I had peaches.

It's actually pretty easy - as easy as pies.... The only problem was that the pan is 11 inch while all the recipes we found on the internet are for 9-inch pan.

So we just winged it. But I still want to record what we did because the tart came out so delicious that I had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner instead of food.



Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1 stick or 1/2 cup butter - chilled


• 4 tablespoons shortening


• 6 large peaches - peeled, pitted and sliced


• 2/3 cup sugar


• 3 tablespoons all purpose flour

Directions

1. Combine 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup sugar and salt in a food processor. Cut cubes of butter and shortening into the flour mixture. Run the food processor until the dough looks like coarse meal.


2. Press the dough onto an 11-inch tart pan and freeze for 20 minutes.


3. Bake the crust in 350 degrees oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool in the pan.


4. Toss cut peaches with 1/2 cup sugar and a few tablespoons of flour. We thought of adding lemon juice but because the peaches were already tart, we didn't. And the tart came out perfectly sweet with a hint of tartness.


5. Arrange peaches on the pre-baked crust and bake fore 20 more minutes to cook the fruit.

Peach and Cream Cupcakes

It's peach season! We went out to Long Island to pick fresh tree-ripe peaches. They were the most delicious peaches I've ever had - not that I had much peach experience. They smelled very peachy - extremely sweet and juicy - and incredibly fuzzy...

Out of 6 or 7 pounds that I picked, my friends and I ate about half fresh and we used the rest for peach and blueberry mini pies. They were all well and delicious. The only problem was that I told everybody I would make peach cupcakes for a friend's birthday party. So peaches from the supermarket would have to do... They were not as fragrant and sweet. But with the magic of butter, sugar, and creamcheese - the cupcakes turned out wonderful. One of my cupcake fans even claimed that these were his ultimate favorite cupcakes (so far.)



Ingredients

• 2 sticks butter - room temperature


• 2 cups sugar


• 3 large eggs


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 1 teaspoon baking powder


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1 cup buttermilk


• 2 ripe peaches - peeled, seeded and chopped
• 
  
  
• 2 packages of cream cheese, divided


• 1 stick butter - room temperature


• 3 cups confectioner sugar


• 2 ripe peaches - peeled, seeded and pureed

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin pans with paper liners.


2. With an electric mixer, beat 2 sticks of butter and 2 cups of sugar together until light and fluffy - about 2 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beat well after each addition. Add vanilla extract and beat until well combined. Scrape the bowl as necessary.


3. In a separate bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together.


4. Stir the flour mixture into the batter alternately with buttermilk in three batches. Stir until well combined. Fold in chopped peaches.


5. Drop the batter by generous tablespoonful into the prepared muffin pans. Fill each up to half. Cut cream cheese into about 1/4 inch cubes. Drop each into the middle of batter.


6. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool completely on cooling racks. Make 32 cupcakes.


7. To make the frosting, beat confectioner sugar and a stick of butter together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the rest of cream cheese. Beat well. Add peach puree. Beat until well combined and stiff. If the frosting becomes to watery, add sugar or leave in the refrigerator for 10 minutes. Drop about a teaspoon onto each cupcake and frost.

Dimpled cupcake (from a drop of cream cheese)

Blueberry and Peach Mini Pies

I meant to bake these mini pies for my friends. But they were too tempting and delicious that I ate them all before they reached any of my friends. These are great - very juicy - bursting with peaches and blueberries. I might have to make them again after finish writing this post.



Ingredients

• 2 cups peeled and chopped peaches


• 2 cups blueberries


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 3 tablespoons all purpose flour


• 2 pie crust recipes

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a muffin pan with a non stick spray.


2. Toss the peaches and blueberries with sugar and flour.


3. Roll out the pie crust and press onto the muffin pan.


4. Spoon the fruit onto the prepared muffin pan. Bake for 30 minutes.


5. Let cool in the pan. Pop out when they cool. Keep refrigerated and serve cold.

Peach Muffin

This is the first recipe I tried from my "new" cookbook - Have Cake and Eat It Too (from a used bookstore.) It basically gives reduced fat version of all kinds of baked goods. I picked this recipe because I had a few refrigerator-burned peaches that were not good for eating anymore. These muffins came out moist and nice - despite just 3 tablespoon of oil and brown peaches. I can't wait to try other recipes from the book!

This recipe is from "Old Fashioned Blueberry Muffins." I used 3 peaches in place of blueberry and reduced sugar a little bit.



Ingredients

• 1 cup all purpose flour


• 1 cup wholewheat flour


• 4 teaspoons baking powder (I thought misread this - but it's for real -- 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon.)


• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 3 tablespoons extra light tasting olive oil


• 1/3 cup sugar


• 1 egg


• 1 cup fat-free plain yogurt


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 3 peaches - chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a muffin pan with paper liners.


2. Combine all purpose flour, wholewheat flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a small bowl.


3. Whisk oil, sugar, egg, yogurt and vanilla extract together until well combined.


4. Stir dry mixture into the wet ingredients gently until just wet - within 10 strokes.


5. Fold in the peaches.


6. Drop by tablespoonful into prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the pan after a few minutes and cool on a rack.

Peach and Plum Crisp

I have made this so many times this past two months with whatever stone fruit or berries available for cheap that week. This week it's yellow peaches and red plums.



Ingredients

• 5 peaches - pitted and cut


• 5 plums - pitted and cut


• 1 tablespoon ground psyllium husk (or tapioca flour or corn starch to absorb juice)


• 1 cup quick cooking oatmeal (not instant)


• 1/2 cup almond flour (or all purpose flour)


• 1/4 cup raw sugar


• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts


• 3 tablespoons butter - chilled

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.


2. Toss the fruit with ground psyllium in 2.2 Qt. Pyrex baking dish.


3. In a separate bowl, combine oatmeal, almond flour, sugar and walnuts. Cut in butter. Rub until you can't find chunky pieces of butter anymore.


4. Sprinkle the crisp over fruit and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the top is slightly brown.

Peach Crisp

I have a recipe clipping! The one and only clipping! Since I don't subscribe to any cooking magazine or any newspaper, there isn't much chance I clip anything. But this recipe was from AM New York, the free newspaper you get in the morning on the way to the subway. I got this recipe way before I started baking a lot. This was probably the only baking I had done before I bought a KitchenAid mixer and went crazy starting in the middle of June last year.

The recipe was for Apple-Cranberry Crisp for Thanksgiving. I'm making my peach crisp based from this recipe - with a lot of changes.... well - now that I'm a little experienced - I know that crisp is very forgiving and usually way too sweet for my taste.



Ingredients

• 6 peaches - cut into chunks


• 1 cup oatmeal


• 1/2 cup all purpose flour


• 1/4 cup raw sugar


• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1/4 cup butter - chilled - cut into small chunks

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.


2. Throw the fruit in ungreased medium size (2.2 qt.) Pyrex dish. I sprinkled 2 teaspoon of my fiber supplement on top of the fruit to help increase my fiber intake... and to help congeal any liquid coming out of the fruit from the heat.


3. In a medium bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients together. Rub the mixture by hands until we get coarse meal. Sprinkle this over the fruit and bake for 35 to 50 minutes depending on how mush you want the fruit to be. I like mine still crisp so I baked for 35 minutes.

I eat this with unsweetened yogurt for breakfast. It feels very healthy with lots of fruit and fiber from my supplement and oatmeal. It's also delicious. The quarter cup of butter goes a long way in this recipe.