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Peach Pie
With the old-fashioned pie the crust should be first partly baked, as for tarts, then the sliced fruit placed in it, a sprinkling of sugar, flour, and butter added, and the top cover put on, slashed, and the whole well baked. Tarts or cobbler are preferable.
PEACH PAN DOWDY, OR PEACH SPIDER PIE Pare and slice the peaches and fill baking-dish (no under crust), sprinkling with sugar, butter, and cinnamon. Cover as for cobbler and bake slowly. When browned remove the crust whole. Place half the peaches on a platter; over them the crust upside down, then the rest of the fruit.
Serve with cream.
Two methods in one entry: a conventional double-crust peach pie the author plainly dislikes, and the pan dowdy she prefers. Neither gives quantities, so the numbers below are working ones for a standard dish.
- What a "spider" isA spider was a cast-iron skillet, originally with three legs for standing over coals. Any 10-inch cast-iron pan or a 2-quart baking dish will do; the point is a shallow vessel that browns the crust evenly.
- "Bake slowly"A slow oven in this period means something like 300-325F. The dowdy has no bottom crust to set, so the aim is to cook the peaches down to a syrup while the top browns; expect roughly 45 minutes to an hour, judged by eye rather than by clock.
- Partly baking the pie shellThe recipe says only "partly baked, as for tarts". In modern terms, blind-bake at about 400F for roughly 15 minutes with weights, then a few minutes more without, until the surface is dry but barely coloured. The advice is sound: peach juice turns an unbaked bottom crust to paste.
- QuantitiesFor a 9-inch pie or a 2-quart dish, figure 2 to 2 1/2 lb of peaches (6 to 8 medium), 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar depending on ripeness, 2 to 3 tablespoons flour, 2 tablespoons butter in bits, and half a teaspoon cinnamon for the dowdy.
- Peeling"Pare" here means peel. Score an X in the base, drop the peaches into boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds, then into ice water, and the skins slip off. Paring a ripe peach with a knife wastes a good deal of flesh.
- "Cover as for cobbler"In this period a cobbler top could be either a rolled biscuit dough or a sheet of pastry laid over the fruit. Since the crust has to be lifted off whole and inverted, roll it as a single round slightly smaller than the dish rather than dropping spoonfuls.
- Removing the crust wholeThis is the hinge of the dish. Let the dowdy stand 10 minutes so the crust firms, then slide a wide spatula or two around and under the edge before lifting. Straight from the oven it will tear.
- Yield and servingAbout six servings at the quantities above. "Cream" here means unwhipped pouring cream rather than whipped.
Pandowdy is a New England fruit dessert, usually apple, in which fruit is baked under a single crust; the name is generally traced to the homely, "dowdy" look of the finished dish, and in many versions the crust is broken up and pressed down into the syrup partway through baking, a step cooks call dowdying. The variation here keeps the crust intact and inverts it between two layers of fruit, which explains the second name: the spider was the long-handled cast-iron skillet, once legged for hearth cooking, that stayed in American kitchens long after the open fire went. That the author sets both pandowdy and cobbler above a proper two-crust peach pie reflects a practical judgment found in other American cookbooks of the period, that very juicy summer fruit and a bottom crust make poor company.