Remember that song? Peaches by The Presidents of the United States of America? The chorus goes: Millions of peaches. Peaches for me. Millions of peaches. Peaches for free. That was in my head as I made this pie for sunny August.
Last month I tried a different pie crust recipe from Cook's Illustrated (their foolproof pie crust recipe). After being fully annoyed with all the millions of steps for that recipe, I went back to Barefoot Contessa's Perfect Pie Crust. It works for me and tastes wonderful. For the peach pie filling, I used the recipe from another blog Joy of Baking.
What I was trying new this month was to make a star pattern with the top crust. I did it by cutting the shapes while it was still folded in half with a diamond shaped cookie cutter. It stretched all weird. My other issue? There wasn't enough filling and sunk and oozes on the top. However, the pie tasted wonderful. Plus ice cream covers up the messy crust and no one is the wiser. Just peachy!
Now Bake That!
My husband went to college with Sandy, a cousin of Steve Stricker. For non-sports fans, Steve is a pro golfer. The only reason I knew of him was because I spent my childhood watching the "lawn show" with my dad. Little white balls. Guys in baseball hats and polo shirts twisting with sticks. Miles and miles of grass.
The monster cookies are her family's recipe. She was cool enough to share when she found out I was a home baker. I'm picky about peanut butter cookies, but add oatmeal and m & m's and I was on board. Anyway, I had a hankering for them because she came to town with her family and we met up with them to go to the zoo. That next day, I had to make them. You know. HAD TO. Again, my apologies for no recipe. It's not mine to share.
What's better than magical brownies? Itty bitty magical brownies. I talked about these Magic Brownies in February. I thought, "Oh, this will be easy, I will just use tiny cupcake paper cups and just lower the amount of cooking time!" Wrong. Now they were delicious. Yeah. They stuck to the paper. Like really stuck. So you had to scrape the gooey brownie yumminess off the paper with your teeth. I think spraying the paper like I spray the parchment paper would have been a good idea. Next time right?
Cherries are my favorite summer fruit. I mean all time favorite. I cringe when I pay $4 a pound for it, but I think it's worth it. Worth it enough to dedicate a pie to it in Sweet July.
Pitting the cherries was the adventure. I can't remember where I learned this tip, but if you don't have a cherry pitter (an undesirable uni-tasker according to Alton Brown) you can go MacGyver! I used a water bottle (a wine bottle would be good too) and a chop stick. I wore gloves too because squirting cherry juice everywhere was unavoidable. You stab the cherry firmly and the pit pops out the bottom. It worked...okay. I think a cherry pitter would have been faster.
I loved the sunshine cut out so much from June's pie, I did it again with this month.
The new thing I tried was a new crust recipe. When I was visiting my sister we were watching Cook's Illustrated Test Kitchen together and they demonstrated their Foolproof Pie Dough recipe. I have two Cook's Illustrated cookbooks and a pile of their magazines, so I hunted for the recipe when I got home.
The pie turned out great!
Bad news: this crust recipe was annoying. There are tons of steps. The dough was in and out of the fridge so many times. I am tired just writing about it. Also, the dough is extremely wet so you have to use tons of flour to get it to the correct consistency. They say it's foolproof. Maybe it is. It certainly tasted and looked good. However, it was not anxiety proof. I am going back to the Barefoot Contessa next month.
Now Bake That!
No,no. I didn't beat up my husband and made him black and blue on his birthday. Since my husband doesn't care much for cake, I offered to let him pick the pie of the month. He picked blackberry and blueberry. Happy Birthday to Dave!
Instead of lattice style I wanted to try a hole cut out and then did slits to make a sunshine design. It was fun!
I used the same Barefoot Contessa Perfect Pie Crust Recipe.
The pie filling I used All Recipes Again: Blackberry and Blueberry Pie
Comments:
The new thing I tried
this time was to protect the crust edges, instead of cutting strips of
foil and arching it around the crust, I did something else. I read to
make two large sheets of foil and make a + and lay it on the counter.
Place the pie in the center and then wrap the edges of the pie from the
outside. It was a lot easier and they didn't fall off!
As you can see, it leaked. I was nervous that if I undercooked and under-filled it, it would be runny and/or sunk in the center. Anxiety has its price with baking. The pie was wonderful (though I still think my strawberry rhubarb is still the best so far!).
Now Bake That!
My husband tells this joke (he says his grandpa said it): Do you think the rain will spoil the rhubarb? Not if it comes in cans. I don't get why that's funny. Then I googled it and found out its just a movie line. Um, still don't get it.
I love rhubarb crisp. Surprisingly, I had never had rhubarb pie. I was adamant that I needed to make one while it was in season. It makes me think of Garrison Keilor's Prairie Home Companion's bebop a reebop rhubarb pie. (I'm a Minnesota Native).
Recipe was from the All Recipes website:
Rhubarb and Strawberry Pie
I also used Barefoot Contessa's Perfect Pie Crust recipe.
Comments:
I didn't feel comfortable with the lattice, my dough kept ripping. I cheated. I just laid layers on top of each other. It's not as pretty, but honestly it didn't matter to anyone but myself.
The trick to using All Recipes is to read the comments. I mean read as many as you can. Thanks to these comments, I let the filling sit on my counter for two hours. Then I baked the pie for 10 minutes longer than the recipe requires. You will not be sorry because:
THE PIE WAS AMAZING!
I'm not kidding. My family ate all of it within 3 days. A record.
I've been making a version of these cookies for years. It started off so innocent, just adding some chocolate chips to the recipe I used from inside the lid of the Quaker Oats box. Then it evolved and evolved into something I claim as all mine. Someone once called these cookies better than a candy bar. This person might have been just being extra nice or rationalizing why he had more than one in 5 minutes, but I'll take it!
This version pictured below had no chocolate chips in them but butterscotch instead. I swap depending on my audience.
Betsy's Oatmeal Cookies
1c butter, softened
1c brown sugar
1/2 c white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/3c flour
1 tsp baking soda
3 c oatmeal
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp ginger
1/2 c butterscotch or chocolate chips
1/2 c toffee bits
1/2 c golden raisins
1/2 c cinnamon chips
Preheat oven 350 degrees
1. cream butter and sugars
2. mix in eggs and vanilla
3. add flour, soda and spices
4. stir in oats, chips and raisins
5. drop onto parchment paper lined cookie sheet (no parchment paper? go ungreased)
6. bake 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees
Comments: If the cookies turn out too thin for your taste, put the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes and try again. Still too thin? Lower your oven temperature. Still too thin? Add a little flour. I mean A LITTLE. After that, you are on your own.
Now Bake That!
