French Peach Pie

I put up a lot of peaches last summer and with another summer coming on fast, I need to find ways to use them.

My husband and son met my BIL at his cabin and they wanted to bring dinner. I had some leftover pie crust from the quiches, so I decided to make a peach pie for them. I love a pie with crumb topping and don’t like to make double crust pies, so I settled on making a French peach pie. My friend Susan asked if it was a French peach pie because it had an air of superiority and a disdain for all things non-French. I told her that I thought that it was just the crumb topping.

**Please note that you can substitute your preferred crust or a refrigerated purchased crust, and you can also use your preferred fruit filling recipe. I happen to love peach pie, but you can use whatever you like. The following quantities are what I used to make a 10″ extra thick pie. Adjust the recipe for the size pie plate that you are using.

Crust

I make a pastry that is really for a Hungarian walnut filled cookie. It is easier to work with and the texture is really nice. I make half a batch because that makes two crusts for my giant pie pans–I have 10″ extra deep pans that require 1 1/2 recipes of filling.

2 3/8 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup cold butter cut into pieces

2 egg yolks

1/2 cup sour cream

Process the flour and butter in a food processor–pulsing for about 30 seconds until it resembles coarse sand. Add the egg yolks and sour cream and process until the dough comes together. Remove dough from the food processor and pat into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Remove dough from refrigerator and cut in half, reserving one half for another purpose. Press dough into a disk and roll out to fit your pie plate. Return wrapped unused dough and the finished crust to the refrigerator.

Filling:

7 cups of thawed peaches (they measured 8 cups when I put them away)–drain some of the excess juice, maybe 2/3 of a cup.

1 cup sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Scant 1/2 cup Minute Tapioca

Combine ingredients together and allow to stand for at least 15 minutes before adding to the pie.

Crumb Topping

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cold butter cut into pieces

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

Add ingredients to food processor and process until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Pour topping into a bowl and press the mixture into large “crumbs”.

Assemble the pie:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Remove pie crust from the refrigerator. Pour peach filing into shell and top with crumb topping that you have pressed into large crumbs. Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 1 hour and ten minutes. This amount of time is for my extra large pie. If you are baking a nine inch pie, bake for 45 to 50 minutes. Let the pie stand at room temperature for at least 4 hours before cutting, or overnight–it will cut more neatly.

This is simply great plain or with vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!