Home › Pastry › Dried-Peach Pie
Dried-Peach Pie
Stew peaches until perfectly soft, mash fine, and add, for two pies, half tea-cup sweet cream, and one tea-cup sugar; bake with two crusts. Or, omit cream, and add half tea-cup boiling water, and butter size of a hickory-nut.
A thrifty winter pie from a book written when fresh fruit stopped in September. The whole thing hinges on cooking the dried fruit down far enough that it behaves like a thick puree, not a wet stew.
- Quantity of fruitThe original gives none. Reckon on about 8 oz (roughly 2 packed cups) of dried peach halves for two 9-inch pies, soaked in water to cover for several hours or overnight, then simmered in the soaking water until they collapse.
- Dry it out, not just softStew uncovered at the end and let the excess liquid go off as steam. Filling that is still soupy when it goes into the shell will make the bottom crust sodden, and there is no thickener here to save it.
- Tea-cupNineteenth-century teacups are usually reckoned at around 6 fl oz, though the book does not define the measure; on that basis, about 3/4 cup of sugar and about 6 tablespoons of cream for two pies. Taste the stewed fruit first and adjust the sugar to suit.
- Butter size of a hickory-nutA hickory nut is about the size of a small walnut in shell, so 1 to 2 teaspoons of butter. It is there to add the richness the cream version supplies.
- Sweet creamMeans fresh cream as opposed to soured, not sweetened cream. Heavy cream is the closest match.
- OvenThe book assumes you know how to bake a two-crust pie. Start at 425F for 15 minutes to set and colour the bottom crust, then drop to 350F for 30 to 35 minutes until the top is browned and the filling bubbles at the vents.
- Vent the topPeach puree traps steam. Cut slits or prick the upper crust, or it will lift away from the filling and split at the rim.
- YieldTwo pies. The original does not give a size, but the quantities suit two 9-inch pies, six to eight slices each. Halve everything for a single pie.
Dried peaches were a staple of Southern and Midwestern larders well into the twentieth century, cut in halves and sun-dried, then stored against the months when no fresh fruit existed. The Dixie Cook Book, compiled in the 1880s and drawing on the same editorial stock as the Buckeye cookbooks, treats them as an everyday pantry item, and offers two versions of this pie, one with cream and one without. The alternative with boiling water and a lump of butter would have served when cream was not to hand.