I’m jumping with joy to have Ken Haedrich, one of America’s most well-respected pie experts, sharing a pie recipe, on this very day, on this very blog. <—- SERIOUS. Ken Haedrich is the author of Pie, which was voted one of Cooking Light’s 7 best baking cookbooks of the last 25 years. Say what? Wait, there’s more. If you want to see the bazillions of other pie-related cookbooks and magazines he’s authored or contributed to, check it out here. Ken has also recently launched The Pie Academy – an “online community dedicated to the idea that anyone can learn to make great pies from scratch.” Ken, you’re heroic. Listen up, pie lovers. Ken will show you where it’s at (hint: crumb topping). “An apple is an excellent thing – until you have tried a peach.” – George du Maurier No disrespect to our esteemed French-born author, but I might have put it this way: A peach is an excellent thing – until you have tried a fresh peach pie. Then again, you’d expect that sort of opinion from someone who has spent the better part of his food career writing about his love affair with pie, a passion I inherited from my father. Dad’s weekend fruit pies were amazing – tender-flaky, exquisitely-filled affairs whose memory still makes me weak in the knees. And this from a fellow whose pie education went no further than the back of a Crisco can. Dad’s specialty was apple, but he would have approved of this peach pie. He was a stickler for good fruit because he knew that second rate produce yielded a second rate pie. Why go to the trouble, he would ask. Why indeed? These peaches are from up the road a piece, in my adoptive state of South Carolina. We’re proud of our peaches here: they’re sweet, fat, and juicy this time of year. Yours should be, too. Other than a little sugar, thickener, and lemon juice, that’s about all there is to the filling. Dad used to say that the fruit should speak for itself. As for the pastry, you will, of course, want a reliably good one for the pie shell. Ours is made with almost equal parts unsalted butter and Crisco – the former for flavor, the latter for superior texture. Do refrigerate the pastry for an hour or two before you roll; you’ll find that a chilled pastry is so much more cooperative, easier to roll and handle. Here you see me putting an attractive ruffled edge on the rim of my pastry. If you’d like to try, this is simple to do: just put two fingers outside the rim as shown, and press against them with your thumb or index finger from the inside. Apply gentle and equal pressure on both sides. When you’re ready, fill the pie shell, place the pie in your preheated oven, then start making the topping right away. In the interest of full disclosure, I have a bias for crumb toppings that borders on the absurd. Less is more? Nonsense. More is more, especially when the topping has both pecans AND Heath bars in it. (There is, in fact, plenty of topping here to reserve a large handful or two, freeze, and sprinkle it on your next batch of muffins just before baking.) I find that it works best to bake your fruit pies about 20 minutes before adding your crumb topping. When you add the topping partway through, you synchronize things so the filling and topping are both perfectly baked at the same time. Try it. I think you’ll like the way it works out. Incidentally, the topping is at its crunchy-best the same day you bake the pie – all the more reason to polish this off in one sitting. If you don’t, cover and refrigerate any leftovers before turning in, but not before the pie has cooled completely. That’s about it. This goes without saying, but you can’t invite peaches, Heath bars, and pecans to the party without inviting the vanilla ice cream, too. Ginormous, devil-may-care, summer-size scoops are perfectly acceptable. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Enjoy the pie, and may the rest of your summer be absolutely awesome. 5 from 1 review If you are overwhelmed by the idea of making your own crust (even though it will be perfectly flaky and delicious), you can also use a frozen, store bought, deep dish 9 inch pie shell. No hard feelings. 🙂 – Ken, Dean of The Pie Academy
