Double-Crusted Peach Pie with Honey, Ginger, and Lime by Alison Roman

It’s been a minute! I just took a full two weeks off of this project to relax, reconnect with my husband, and spend time in nature. We spent a few days up in Northern Minnesota in the Boundary Waters, which is a collection of over 1,000 lakes and many islands between the Minnesota and Canadian borders. To get to our campsite, it took eight miles of canoeing and six different portage sites where we had to move all our gear, including the canoes, from one side of an island to another. It was hard work, but very rewarding. 

We spent our second week of vacation mostly in Door County, WI. We biked, hiked, sailed, and ate some surprisingly fantastic meals. I even discovered what Jordan calls “my spirit restaurant.” A magical, thoughtful, incredibly delicious place called Trixie’s. It was so good that we ate there on two different nights. I plan to write about it at some point because it really was that special. 

Alright, now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Because what you’re really here for is pie. A peach pie. A double-crusted peach pie. A double-crusted peach pie with honey, ginger, and lime. A pie for the summer, for standing apart from other regular fruit pies, for making a statement. 

As per usual, I made both pie crust discs from King Arthur’s Gluten-Free Pie Crust recipe. It’s become a reliable staple for me as I venture further on this gluten-less journey, and I recommend it to all others who find themselves on the same gluten-less road. Once I prepared the dough and let it chill for about two hours, I followed Alison’s suggestion to roll both discs out to roughly 14-inch rounds and then stuck both of them back in the fridge to cool. It was a really hot day, so the butter seemed glad to spend maximum time in the cold. 

Meanwhile, I prepared the filling, which consists of 4 lbs. of ripe peaches, sugar, honey, lime zest and juice, cornstarch, and a good bit of freshly grated ginger. Unlike some of Alison’s other fruit desserts, I actually followed the suggested amount of peaches. In the past, I’ve found that for whatever reason, her quantities of fruit far surpass the capacity of my baking dishes. So I’ve ended up with anywhere from 1-2 lbs. of extra sliced fruit. Not the worst problem to have, but not ideal either. But this time around, I had a feeling that the pie could handle a piled-high mound of slices. And so it could. 

The rest of the process was rather straightforward as far as pie construction goes. One crust on the bottom, filling added, another crust on top with three slices into the dough to allow steam to escape. The whole thing is covered in egg wash and a third cup of Demerara sugar. The tough part is the time! The pie spends roughly an hour and forty-five minutes in the oven, and then it needs three hours to cool! Talk about an opportunity for character development. The pie most certainly tested my patience. 

But boy, the reward was worth it. As I said in the beginning, this is no ordinary fruit pie. The lime zest and ginger, though simple, add complexity and elevate the peaches to a tangy, snappy sweetness. The ginger mellowed out a bit by day two of leftover pie, but it was still the strongest flavor. If you don’t love ginger, don’t cut it out completely, just cut it in half, or reduce it by a third. In my opinion, ginger is the key to a non-boring peach pie. And you don’t want to be boring, right? 

125 recipes cooked, 100 to go!!!!!

The Only Pie Crust by Alison Roman - GUEST POST by Margaret Winchell

Margaret, my dear friend who I mention frequently on this blog, has generously made and reviewed Alison’s pie crust recipe. Due to my gluten intolerance, there wasn’t a way for me to keep the integrity of this recipe AND eat it. So I asked Margaret, queen of pies, to do the honors. What a TREAT this post is. Margaret knows her pie crust, so listen up….

Pie crust recipes are everywhere. Everyone has their own method, and the recipe is more of a shorthand for that method than any kind of unique formula. The key players are flour, butter, salt, and water, with recurring guest stars sugar and vinegar. If you see eggs on the ingredient list, keep looking. If the recipe doesn’t mention keeping things cold, run. And if anyone tells you it’ll always be the same precise proportion of ingredients, give that recipe writer the side eye. Pie crust is about feeling your way through a bunch of decisions about variables, and it’s a little different every time.

Here’s what I like about Alison’s recipe:

  • She acknowledges the need for flexibility and restraint. There’s a guideline for how much water you’ll need and advice about how much wiggle room you should allow within that quantity, and she tells you to add less than you think. Smart.

  • She specifies that ingredients need to be chilled. Pie crust is a greasy mess when they’re not, so this is critical.

  • She has you rest the dough. Any dough involving gluten (so, pie crusts, bread doughs, even cookies) benefits from a rest before rolling. Just like when a person gets worked up, sitting in a cool, quiet room for an hour allows the dough to relax and limber up for the next event. In addition, this gives moisture a chance to distribute itself evenly among all the little bits of flour so you don’t end up with crumbly bits at the perimeter of the dough.

Here’s what I wish Alison did differently:

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  • Cut the butter smaller. She has you cut it into 1-inch pieces, which just makes a little more work for your hands when you incorporate it into the flour. Hands are hot. Knives are cool. Cutting butter smaller = less warming up of the butter as you rub it in. (Pie math!)

  • Get the palms OUTTA there. I don’t understand why Alison tells you to smash the butter between palms and fingertips and later, to knead the dough with your palms. Fingertips stay cool, but palms are hot. Keep! It! Cold! I like to crush the cubes of butter with a motion akin to aggressively rubbing a dog’s ear, tossing the exposed butter in flour every few seconds. (Picked up that tip from my main science dude Alton Brown.) See? ^^^

  • Keep the flour-butter mixture in the bowl. WHY do we have to dump it out on the counter? This just means I’m chasing flour and water around the counter as I work. I think keeping it in the bowl makes it easier to toss with your fingertips (see notes on palms, above) and helps the water find its way to the floury bits. I added a little more water than I meant to in making this because it was harder to mix it all together evenly on the counter. 

  • Give a clue for when you’ve added enough water. I follow the rule that if you can squeeze a clump of dough in your fingertips and it mostly holds together, you’re done. 

The recipe makes two discs, so one went in my freezer, and I rolled out the other to make a lid for a little skillet pie with some mushrooms and rainbow chard I got at the farmer’s market this morning with a friend (summer, amirite?).

Rolling out the dough was a little tricky. It was a hot Michigan summer day, and the larger chunks of butter that remained got a little soft and stuck to the rolling pin a bit, but the dough sort of fused back together in the oven, hiding a couple cracks in the crust. Using Alison’s skillet mushroom and chicken pie as a guide, I brushed the crust with egg wash and baked it at 425, but not before sprinkling it with some flaky salt for extra crunch.

In the end, the crust had superior flakiness and was very, very buttery. It’s delicious, but I might dial back the butter just a bit for warmer months when I want a lighter meal. Alison goes full throttle on flavor, and the salt was no exception; if I foresee wanting to sprinkle flaky salt on top again, I might reduce the quantity in the dough. All that being said, this is a totally delicious pie crust. I don’t know that I’d call it the only pie crust you’ll ever want, but you could certainly make it so if rich, buttery pie crust is up your alley.

107 AND 108 recipes cooked, 117 to go. This recipe appears in both cookbooks, and thus, it counts for two recipes.

And now, back to Annie for regularly scheduled A&A content!

Buttered Raspberry Hand Pies by Alison Roman

I love pie, but I rarely make it. Pie crust is intimidating, primarily because it deals with very cold butter that must remain very cold whilst being cut, massaged, rolled, re-rolled, and rolled one more time. Pie crust requires knowing when to stick it in the fridge to keep the temperature right, and how to roll it out without creating any cracks. It’s a delicate balance of precision and intuition. 

Pie crust is kind of like golf. It can take years to become a consistently average golfer. A strong golf swing requires the right form, nuance, and attention to detail. So does making a pie crust. 

I cannot claim proficiency at golf or pie. Which is why I asked my friend Margaret to make this recipe with me while she was in town. Margaret knows pie crust like an old childhood friend, and her guidance was crucial to this process. She also helped me find a Gluten-Free pie crust recipe from King Arthur, which we used instead of Alison’s pie crust recipe. (Note: we skipped the ClearJel step in the recipe.)

Hand pies look like more buttery, sophisticated versions of Uncrustables. You know, the pb&j sandwich with sealed edges? A childhood dream! The process boils down to creating the crust, then the filling, then assembly, and finally, baking. 

I won’t go into the step by step of making the dough – that’s what the link above is for – or the filling. Instead, I’ll share some process photos below. Then keep reading for final thoughts! 

The filling of the pies consists of raspberries, lime zest, and sugar. Margaret and I agreed that the center tasted a bit too tart for our liking. If we make hand pies in the future, we may try using cherries, or adding some apple to the raspberry to balance out the sourness. Apricots would be nice, too. 

The hand pies were delicious, but I haven’t decided whether they were worth the hours of work. I loved the activity because I made them with a friend, but I doubt I’d have the desire or patience to bake hand pies alone. 

All of Alison’s recipes involving pie crust use her “The Only Pie Crust” recipe, which is listed in both cookbooks. But due to my gluten aversion, I asked Margaret to make the pie crust for me and write a guest post about it! More to come from Margaret. 

93 recipes cooked, 132 to go.