peach-blueberry-ginger pie

I'd been hankering to make a two-crust pie for ages and after a very busy (but fun) Friday morning last week, decided to hit up Costco for some organic Washington peaches and (Canadian) blueberries. Friday afternoon was devoted to the pie (check out my able helpers below).


It was my first time ever to do a double crust and I know next time I'll be faster and more confident as well. Anyway, it was a super-fun experience.

If you've never worked much with pastry, check out Pam's pie tutorial over on The Pioneer Woman's stomping grounds. I loved her very practical method of using two sheets of parchment paper and rolling the crust between them.

I used Pam's recipe and went with all butter and only 1 teaspoon of sugar in the crust.

(Her suggestion to mix an egg with some water and brush on top did make a nice shiny glaze.)




For the filling, I just went with my intuition and mixed 3-4 peaches (can't be sure how much went into the pie because of those helpers I had!), a couple of cups of blueberries, 1/3 c. brown sugar, 2 tablespoons cornstarch, and powdered cinnamon and ginger. (I heart ginger and it gave it such a nice perky extra kick.)

After I added the filling, I also went with Pam's idea to squeeze half a lemon over the fruit and then dot with butter. Lovely.

Pam's tutorial does not need to be repeated here, but for posterity I will share my three biggest mistakes:

1. I let the butter warm up too much (again, I had small helpers who are very tactile). One website I used as a resource says that if you are using a food processor, you can even freeze the butter. (I also ran with their idea of mixing equal parts flour and sugar to sprinkle on the bottom crust before adding filling so it creates a non-soggy barrier, and I think that did work well.)

2. The crust got rolled too thin and the top crust tore in one spot as I placed it over the filling. As a result a bit of juices cooked through. No biggy but it wasn't exactly perfecto.

3. Pam suggested turning down the heat after the first part of baking, which I completely forgot to do. So even though I covered the pie with foil after that first segment of baking, the outside edge of the top crust browned too much for my liking.

And in spite of those foibles, the pie was deeeeeee-licious! Can't wait to try my next one. We'll be apple picking in October so I wonder what the next filling will be...