Peach Pie. With lots of butter.

Baby don't you cry, gonna bake a pie. Gonna bake a pie with a heart in the middle. Baby don't be blue, gonna bake for you. Gonna bake a pie with a heart in the middle*

In keeping with my "best wife ever" goal, I got up early on Tuesday morning to bake Alex a birthday pie. He chose peach, based on the abundance of ripe peaches just hanging out on the counter, and I got to work rolling, cutting and sprinkling flour on every surface available. Pie is a messy business, internet.

I used Dorie's Good For Almost Everything Pie Dough, and while it is truly luxurious and delicious, I hestitate to agree that it actually is good for everything. There is so much butter. We're talking Paula Deen amounts of butter. So much so that when the pie was actually baking, the edges of dough around the pie plate dripped and melted down, sizzling onto the baking dish. This can't be good for you.

Can you just imagine this crust dripping down the edges and dropping melted butter all over my oven?

And after it cooled, the butter seeped back into the crust, turning it translucent in some parts. It was almost too rich! I will use this crust recipe again, because it is ridiculously simple, but I'll cut back on the butter. In the world of pie crust baking, there are two different camps: butter and shortening. Both are solid fats, but while butter makes a rich and tender crust, shortening is what gives a delicious flaky texture. I've never used shortening because I just couldn't bring myself to do it, but Dorie's recipe calls for both. Feel free to experiment!

The peach pie filling was a combination of various pie recipes on the internet, so I can't credit just one source. I loved the combination of brown sugar and cinnamon with the peaches. It gave a wonderfully sweet and spicy flavor. I haven't yet mastered the art of making a pie pretty. Double crust is hard! Oh well, guess I just have to bake more pies. Tough job, but someone has to do it.

Dorie's Good for Almost Everything Pie Crust

Ingredients:
FOR A 9-INCH DOUBLE CRUST
3 cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup sugar
1 ½ tsp salt
2 1/2 sticks very cold (frozen is fine) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-size pieces (maybe less!)
⅓ cup very cold (frozen is even better) vegetable shortening, cut into 4 pieces (I eliminated)
About ½ cup ice water

Instructions:
Put the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor fitted with a metal blade; pulse just to combine the ingredients.

Drop in the butter and shortening and pulse only until the butter and shortening are cut into the flour. Until you have some pieces the size of fat green peas and others the size of barley.

Pulsing the machine on and off, gradually add about 6 tablespoons of the water add a little water and pulse once, add some more water, pulse again and keep going that way. Then use a few long pulses to get the water into the flour. If, after a dozen or so pulses, the dough doesn’t look evenly moistened or form soft curds, pulse in as much of the remaining water as necessary, or even a few drops more, to get the dough that will stick together when pinched. Big pieces of butter are fine.

Scrape the dough out of the work bowl and onto a work surface. Divide the dough in half. Gather each half into a ball, flatten each ball into a disk and wrap each half in plastic. Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour before rolling.

To roll out the dough:
Have a buttered 9-inch pie plate at hand.You can roll the dough out on a floured surface or between sheets of wax paper or plastic wrap or in a rolling slipcover.

If you’re working on a counter, turn the dough over frequently and keep the counter floured. If you are rolling between paper, plastic or in a slipcover, make sure to turn the dough over often and to life the paper, plastic or cover frequently so that it doesn’t roll into the dough and form creases.

If you’ve got time, slide the rolled-out dough into the fridge for about 20 mins to rest and firm up.

Fit the dough into the pie plate and, using a pair of scissors, cut the excess dough to a 1/4- to 1/2-inch overhang. Fold the dough under itself, so that it hangs over the edge just a tad, and flute or pinch the crust to make a decorative edge. Alternatively, you can finish the crust by pressing it with the tines of a fork.


Peach Pie Filling

Ingredients:
6 cups peeled and sliced peaches (peel them easily by blanching them)
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar (I used 1/4 brown and 1/4 regular)
cinnamon to taste
2 TBS butter, cut into smaller pieces (not sure this was necessary!)

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 425.

Combine peaches, flour and sugar in a medium bowl and toss to coat. Add cinnamon to taste. Pour the mixture into the bottom crust and dot with small pieces of butter. Cover with the top crust, and use a sharp knife to cut steam vents.

Place the pie on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes at high heat. Turn the oven down to 350 and continue baking for 30 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the juices are bubbling. Let it cool fully before serving, or you'll end up with peach pie soup!

I know it looks like butter, but that's really topped with vanilla ice cream. I'm not that masochistic!

*From the movie, Waitress. Ben, I put that in there just for you!