Peaches!

by Elissa

I have been infatuated with fresh peaches this summer. Eating them as-is is always wonderful when you can get your hands on really ripe fruit. But I've been buying so many peaches that I've had to branch out. Here are a few options if you find yourself with an abundance of peaches.

The simplest option is one I learned about on the blog Sweet Amandine. She desribed a recipe ff Nigel Slater's that sounded so good I was just itching to try it. It involves making a paste of almonds, sugar, and butter (I also added a generous pinch of salt), spreading the paste on top of peach halves, and baking until the top is crispy and the fruit is concentrated and silky. So easy! So good! Try it today! (Unfortunately we ate these baked peaches so quickly that I never took a picture).

Next in terms of difficulty is a peach galette that I made based on this recipe for apple galette from Dinner: A Love Story (the only change I made was adding a couple of teaspoons of cornstarch to keep the peach juice from getting out of control).

The crust ripped while I was folding everything, but I just kept going and it turned out great. I was able to make the crust out of recycled pie dough scraps that I had frozen and the galette was no worse for wear. Definitely simpler than making a pie.

Finally, I made a peach pie that was pretty fantastic.

I went with my favorite pie crust recipe and adapted the proportions from Cooks Illustrated for the filling: 6 cups sliced peaches, 1 tsp. lemon zest, juice from 1/4 lemon, 3/4 cup sugar, and 3 Tb. instant tapioca. Homemade pie is definitely a bit of a project, but this effort paid off and I think this has been my favorite pie of the summer.

Moral of the story: get some peaches and start baking! What's your favorite peach recipe?

Comments

[Jackie]

Super easy and Ah-mazing!
http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1941,155173-241205,00.html

[Elsha]

I'm a big fan of peach pie, but fresh peach slices are also an excellent addition to vanilla ice cream or yogurt. YUM.

[Sarah Anne]

I've been eating them 3x per day just fresh and sliced up, but have been looking for something 'more'.

I found a recipe for a 'raw' crumble and made a 1/2 serving and INHALED it!

http://www.youngandraw.com/10-minute-raw-peach-cobbler/