peach-raspberry pie

At 6:42 Monday evening I could be found standing on my (somewhat precarious) kitchen table in my pajamas photographing a slice of pie. This slice, to be precise.

The past weeks have been a bit frenzied around here and so I had decided to forgo my usual routine of putting on real clothing, applying makeup and perhaps even showering that day. (Who can keep track of such details?) Which is why, frizzy-haired and bra-less, I hesitated for a long moment before answering the door when I heard a knock. 

I poked my head cautiously around the door to find…our neighbor Lindsay. She and her boyfriend had just returned from Vashon Island with an abundance of oysters. And did we want to come over and have some? 

Every fiber of my un-scrubbed being wanted to say no. The light was changing quickly and I needed to shoot this pie for the blog. Beau was off running errands so I’d be on my own making small talk with neighbors I don’t know very well (an introvert’s nightmare). I’d be forced to emerge from my state of unkempt comfort and make myself presentable to the world. 

But a tiny piece of me thought: Why not? You’re tired of working anyway. Plus, oysters! I told Lindsay I’d finish up my shoot and be right over. 

I’m not sure if it’s because we’re having a heatwave. (Yes, temperatures above 80°F constitute a heatwave in Seattle. Don’t laugh.) Or because I’ve logged a lot of hours on various projects in the past weeks. Or because I figured our neighbors’ kitchen window looks right into our house and so they’re probably going to see me in my pyjamas many, many times in the coming years. But I decided I couldn’t be bothered to change out of my PJs for a trip across the lawn. I did, however, wrangle a little of the frizz out of my curls and put on a bra. I slid on a pair of flip-flops for good measure and headed out the door. 

Sitting on Mark and Lindsay’s front porch slurping briny oysters out of their shells turned out to be the most relaxing, carefree evening I’ve spent in ages. Beau showed up at some point. Mark poured us several glasses of a beautiful rosé. We learned about our neighbors’ jobs and hobbies and favorite restaurants in town. We discovered that Mark assembled a traditional Italian pizza oven at his family’s house on Vashon that we might one day be able to help put to good use. They informed us that we definitely shouldn’t miss the upcoming block party in our street. And that there are so many fruit trees in our neighborhood because it was once an orchard. 

The next day, I took over a couple slices of pie to thank Mark and Lindsay for their hospitality. I would have baked this pie regardless, because it’s summer and summer = pie. But after I dropped it off, I felt extremely grateful to be living in a neighborhood that’s as diverse and neighborly as ours. On our multicultural street, people know each other. We wave when walking past or stop to chat about each other’s gardens. We share oysters and pie. In the midst of all the hate and violence that have monopolized headlines in the past months, this feels like a small miracle. And a huge comfort. 

I’m happier than ever that we managed to find our way into a sense of community here on Findlay Street. And that I’ve got so many pies to bake in the summers to come.

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Peach-Raspberry Pie

• 1 recipe flaky pie dough (see below)
• 3 lbs firm-ripe peaches (about 6 large)
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice, or to taste
• 2 ½ tablespoons cornstarch, divided
• 9 tablespoons sugar, divided
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• Pinch salt
• 8 oz raspberries (about 2 cups)

Flaky Pie Dough

• 1 lb + 2 oz (4 cups) all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 8 oz (2 sticks) butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and chilled
• 5 oz (1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons) lard, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and chilled
• 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
• 3/4 cup cold water
• 3 tablespoons cream or milk (or a whole egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water), to glaze
• 1-2 tablespoons turbinado, demerara or sanding sugar (regular old sugar will work, too)

*Notes: Peaches can release a lot of juice once you sprinkle sugar on them. If your peaches give off a lot of liquid, you’ll need to pour most of it off before baking to avoid a soggy crust and loose filling.

– Cutting your peaches into large slices (about 1 inch) limits the surface area and also helps limit the amount of liquid they give off.

– Lots of recipes say you need to blanch and peel your peaches. I don’t recommend it. I think it’s fussy and also makes the peaches feel a little slimy. Plus leaving the peels on gives your filling beautiful blush tones.

Prepare the crust according to this recipe.

When you are ready to bake the pie, arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat it to 425°F.  

Cut the peaches into slices about 1-inch thick and place them in a large mixing bowl. Gently toss with the lemon juice and ½ cup of the sugar. Set aside to rest for 20-30 minutes. Pour off the juice from the peaches discarding all of it except for ½ cup. Toss the peaches (and ½ cup juice) with two tablespoons of the cornstarch, the ginger and a pinch of salt. 

Place the raspberries in a medium mixing bowl and toss with the remaining 1 ½ teaspoons of the cornstarch and 1 tablespoon of sugar. 

To fill the pie crust, pour half of the peach slices onto your well-chilled or frozen bottom crust. Arrange half of the raspberries over the peaches. Top with the rest of the peach slices and then the rest of the raspberries. Cover your fruit with your top crust. (Here’s a great tutorial on how to weave a lattice-top crust if you want to go that route.) Trim the edges to overhang by 1/2 inch. Fold the top edges of the lattice inside the bottom crust. Place the filled and topped pie back in the freezer to chill for 15-20 minutes. 

I know, I know. There’s a lot of chilling and freezing and waiting around. But taking the time to par-freeze your pie will keep the crust from slumping in the oven and make sure that lattice turns out gorgeously. 🙂

Brush the top crust with cream, milk or egg wash and then sprinkle with the turbinado, demerara or sanding sugar. Place the pie on a sheet pan and bake until the crust is lightly browned, about 30 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F and continue baking until the crust is dark golden brown, about 45-60 minutes longer. I like my crust deeply caramelized; if you like yours less dark, feel free to take your pie out earlier.

Remove the pie from the oven and allow it to cool a bit and firm up before slicing. Leftovers keep best covered at room temperature overnight. If you need to keep your pie for more than a day, cover tightly and store in the fridge.
 
Makes 6-8 servings.

P.S. Try to save at least one piece for breakfast the next day. Coffee + pie = breakfast perfection!

brown sugar pumpkin galette with bay ice cream

Ok. I’m going to level with you guys. It’s not always easy to turn out a weekly blog post. As I’m sure you can imagine, I sometimes have zero culinary inspiration and Beau and I end up dining on chili from the hotbar at Whole Foods. Some weeks, taking the time to create, prep and shoot a recipe feels like too much. Not to mention finding something engaging to write about it. Sometimes I just don’t want to. 

This week was starting to look a lot like a just-don’t-want-to sort of week. I’ve got holiday gift classes to prepare for and I’m getting ready to launch my next culinary tour. It seems like the majority of my friends have had babies in the last month, so I have a mountain of baby gifts to get in the mail. Thursday’s Thanksgiving, which means shopping and cooking and all that jazz.  

But I’ve had this idea for a pumpkin tart floating around in my head for months. And since there is (obviously) no better moment for a pumpkin tart than the week of Thanksgiving, I figured I’d better get on it. 

Pumpkin pie has been my favorite Thanksgiving dessert since forever. Apple pie is nice. Pecan pie, delightful. But pumpkin pie, wreathed in a fluffy halo of whipped cream captured my young heart and has held sway over it ever since. For years, my go-to recipe has been this one, with the spices doubled and a little maple and rum thrown in for good measure. This is my dream pumpkin pie–velvety and rich with a complex spiciness. But I’m not so particular when it comes to pumpkin pie; I eat the samples they hand out at the grocery store with almost as much gusto. With the savory-sweetness of pumpkin, a creamy custard base and the alchemy of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, it’s pretty tough to mess up pumpkin pie.

That said, I wanted to try something different this year. A riff on the classic. Maybe a little less sweet and with the pumpkin itself playing a starring roll. So despite my just-don’t-want-to state of mind, I pulled out the ingredients for galette dough and headed to the market to select a pumpkin. The next day I queued up several episodes of This American Life and got to work. 

Somewhere around the time the disks of dough were in the refrigerator and my pumpkin was neatly peeled and seeded and sliced, I realized that this chilly Monday morning spent chopping and kneading in my warm kitchen was a pleasure and not a slog. There’s something about the methodical nature of baking that clears my head. It’s precise. And technical. You have to focus on the task at hand, which is it’s own sort of meditation. 

Baking this tart turned out to be the perfect antidote to a mounting tide of pre-holiday stress. And it’s almost as good as the ethereal pumpkin pies I remember from my childhood. 

Wishing you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving, whatever sort of pie you fancy!

xo,

Olaiya

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Brown Sugar Pumpkin Galette with Bay Ice Cream

• ½ recipe Easy Galette Dough (recipe follows)
• One small baking pumpkin (mine weighed 2 ½ lbs), halved, seeded, peeled and sliced ⅓ inch thick
• ½ vanilla bean
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• ¼ cup light brown sugar, loosely packed
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• Pinch (1/16 teaspoon) ground allspice
• Pinch (1/16 teaspoon) ground cloves
• Pinch (1/16 teaspoon) ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 oz (3 tablespoons) butter, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons rum (optional)
• 1 tablespoon milk or cream
• 1 tablespoon sanding sugar (demerara, turbinado or even plain old granulated sugar will work, too)
• Bay Ice Cream, to serve (recipe follows)

*Note: You can use any winter squash in this recipe. You might want to add a bit more or less sugar depending on which squash you choose (butternut and acorn are sweeter, kabocha is more savory, etc.). Cook times will vary depending on the variety of squash and how thickly it’s sliced.

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a large rimmed sheet pan with parchment paper. Roll out one disk of dough on a lightly floured work surface into a ¼-inch-thick round or oval. Transfer the dough to the sheet pan.  Arrange the pumpkin over the dough, overlapping the slices slightly and leaving a 1 ½-inch border. Place the sheet pan in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. (This keeps the dough from slumping when you bake your galette.)

Use a paring knife to halve the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds out. Place the vanilla seeds in a small bowl with the granulated sugar. Use your fingers to rub the vanilla into the sugar; this will keep it from clumping. Transfer the vanilla sugar to a medium bowl and add the brown sugar, salt and spices. Whisk to combine then rub the butter and rum into the sugar mixture. 

Remove the galette from the freezer. Crumble the brown sugar mixture over the sliced pumpkin. Fold the dough over the pumpkin and lightly brush the edges of the galette with milk or cream. then sprinkle with the sanding sugar. Bake, rotating the galette as necessary for even browning, until the crust is golden brown and the pumpkin is cooked through, about 60 minutes. Cool slightly before slicing and serving with Bay Ice Cream.

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Easy  Galette Dough

• 13 oz (3 cups) all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoons salt
• 9 oz (2 ¼ sticks) chilled, unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch cubes
• 8 tablespoons (or more) ice water
• 1 ½ teaspoons apple cider vinegar

 
*Notes: I love, love, LOVE this dough. The food processor does most of the work and it comes together in no time. It is also very forgiving, which makes it a great dough for novice bakers. Unlike my flaky pie dough, which requires a bit more work, this is a tender dough–more like a pâte sablé. If you’d like a flakier crust on your galette, feel free to substitute this dough recipe.

– This dough can be refrigerated for up to 2 days or placed in a air-tight plastic bag and frozen for up to 2 months. If frozen, thaw the dough in the refrigerator overnight and soften slightly at room temperature before rolling out.

Blend the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor to combine. Add the butter, processing between each addition using on/off turns, until the dough looks like coarse meal. Gradually add the ice water and cider vinegar and process until the dough just comes together. You may need to add more ice water by teaspoonfuls if the dough is dry.  

Turn the dough out onto a large work surface and gather it together into a ball. Do not knead or you risk toughening the dough. Divide the dough in half with a bench scraper or knife. Form each half into a ball and then flatten each ball into a disk about 1 inch thick. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour before rolling. 
 
Makes 2 disks of dough (enough for 2 galettes).

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Bay Ice Cream

• 1 3/4 cups heavy cream
• 10 black peppercorns (whole)
• 6 Turkish bay leaves (fresh or dried)
• 1 cup whole milk
• 3/4 cup granulated white sugar, divided
• Pinch fine grain sea salt
• 4 large egg yolks

*Note: This ice cream will keep for up to a week, though the texture is best on days 1-3. After that it can get a little grainy, especially if you open and close your freezer a lot. 

Place the cream and peppercorns in a medium saucepan and place over medium heat. If you’re using fresh bay leaves, slice each into 4 or 5 pieces and add to the pot. If you are using dried bay, crush the leaves a little before adding them to the pot. When the cream comes to a bare simmer, remove the pot from the heat, cover and set aside to steep for 40 minutes. When the cream has infused, pour it through a fine mesh sieve into a small bowl. Discard the bay and peppercorns. 

Prepare an ice bath by filling a large mixing bowl half full of ice and then just covering the ice with cold water.

Return the strained cream to the pot along with the milk, ½ cup of the sugar and salt. Heat over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture reaches a bare simmer. Do not boil. 

Whisk the egg yolks and remaining ¼ cup sugar together in a medium bowl. Gradually warm the eggs by adding the cream mixture in a thin stream while whisking. Return the egg and cream mixture to the saucepan. Cook over medium-low, stirring constantly with a flexible heatproof spatula (be sure scrape the bottom and corners of the pan so the custard doesn’t scorch) until the mixture coats the back of spoon like this. If you’re more of a technical cook, the custard should register between 170 to 175°F on an instant-read thermometer. Do not let the custard boil or it will break and look grainy. 

Immediately strain the thickened custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl set over the ice bath and whisk to cool. Transfer the cooled custard to the fridge and chill for at least 6 hours (overnight if possible–the colder your base is, the smoother your ice cream will be). Freeze the custard in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions then transfer to an airtight container and place  in the freezer to harden, at least one hour.

Makes about 1 quart.

peach-blackberry pie

A couple of weeks ago, I got an insane craving for pie. Maybe compulsion is a better word. I started dreaming of pie morning, noon and night. 

But not just any pie. I wanted a slice of pie with a golden, shattering crust. And a perfectly set sweet-tart filling. It was going to have to be homemade.

So on a rare rainy Sunday, I got to work rolling dough then headed to the farmers market to scout the perfect fruit. The peaches from Collins Orchard are stupidly good this year; I mean juicy, honeyed, fragrant, peachy perfection. So I knew peaches were going to have to get involved. I decided to throw in a handful of inky blackberries and a hint of ginger and anise to deepen the flavors and bring the whole thing together.

After slicing and rolling and shaping and chilling and baking, I sat down to a really fantastic slice of pie. I’m proud to say it’s one of the best I’ve ever made. It took the better part of an afternoon. But we all know good things can’t be rushed.

And one bite of those fragrant peaches nestled beneath a flaky, buttery crust affirmed all the glory of summer. Long, hot days. Dips in the lake. And peach pie. Just the way it was meant to me.

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Peach-Blackberry Pie

• 1 recipe flaky pie dough (see below)
• 3 lbs firm-ripe peaches (about 6 large)
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice, or to taste
• 2 ½ tablespoons cornstarch, divided
• 9 tablespoons sugar, divided
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• ¾ teaspoon ground anise
• Pinch salt
• 8 oz blackberries (about 2 cups)

Flaky Pie Dough

• 1 lb + 2 oz (4 cups) all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons Kosher salt
• 8 oz (2 sticks) butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and chilled
• 5 oz (1/2 cup +2 tablespoons) lard, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and chilled
• 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
• 3/4 cup cold water
• 3 tablespoons cream or milk
• 1-2 tablespoons turbinado, demerara or sanding sugar (regular old sugar will work, too)

*NOTES: I wanted to sidestep the slick, gelatinous filling found in the worst sort of peach pies (remember when canned pie filling was a thing?). I’d never made a peach pie before, so I rummaged around on the interwebs for some pointers. Here’s what I discovered:

Peaches can release a lot of juice once you sprinkle sugar on them. If your peaches give off a lot of liquid, you’ll need to pour some off before baking to avoid a soggy crust and loose filling.

Cutting your peaches into large slices (about 1 inch) limits surface area and also helps limit the amount of liquid they give off.

Also: Lots of recipes say you need to blanch and peel your peaches. I don’t recommend it. I think it gives the peaches a slightly slimy mouthfeel. Plus leaving the peels on gives your filling beautiful blush tones.

Prepare the crust according to this recipe.

When you are ready to bake the pie, arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 425°F.  

Cut the peaches into slices about 1-inch thick and place in a large mixing bowl. Gently toss with the lemon juice and ½ cup of the sugar. Set aside to rest for about 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, pour off the juice from the peaches and measure it. You should have about ½ cup of juice. If you have extra, discard it. Toss the peaches (and ½ cup juice) with two tablespoons of the cornstarch, the ginger, anise and a pinch of salt. 

Place the blackberries in a medium mixing bowl and toss with the remaining 1 ½ teaspoons of the cornstarch and 1 tablespoon of sugar. (You can add a bit more sugar if your berries aren’t super sweet.)

To fill the pie crust, pour half of the peach slices onto your well-chilled or frozen bottom crust. Arrange half of the blackberries over the peaches. Top with the rest of the peach slices and then the rest of the blackberries. Cover your fruit with your top crust then bake according to the directions here.

Allow your pie to cool a bit and firm up before slicing. Leftovers keep best covered at room temperature overnight. If you need to keep your pie for more than a day, cover tightly and store in the fridge. 

P.S. I highly recommend having a slice of this pie for breakfast with a strong cup of coffee.