Aggie Burnside generously offered to retreat to the kitchen and make peach pies for the family at the beach house. There were a lot of peaches to use up, but she did it mostly to stay out of the way of an impending confrontation in the adjacent room.

She made the pie crusts from scratch and everyone who bakes has a special technique and preferred shortening to use. I’m taking the easy way out on that debate and suggest you either use your favorite two-crust recipe or bail and buy pre-made crusts instead. 

Ingredients:

Two piecrusts for a 9” pie

Enough peaches for about 5 cups of cut up peaches (5 or 6 large)

Juice of half a lemon

¼ c white sugar

¼ c brown sugar

4 Tablespoons corn starch

Pinch of nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt

Get your pie crusts ready and pre-heat the oven. (See below for temperatures.)

Working with one peach at a time, peel (yes, peel), pit and slice them into chunks and dip them in a bowl of water with the lemon juice and then into a colander to drain. Let them sit for about 20 minutes.

Mix the sugars, cornstarch and spices together then combine them into the drained peaches. 

Pile the peaches into the bottom crust. 

Put on the top crust and seal the edges by pressing them in a decorative way. Make a few vents in the top crust to release the steam as it cooks. 

For extra credit, you can make a lattice top by cutting strips of the upper crust dough and weaving them into a pattern.

You may want to cover the edges of the crust with aluminum foil or a pre-made crust protector.

Bake according to the idiosyncrasies of your oven:

If you have an oven that responds quickly and easily to adjusting temperature settings, then start at 425° for 10 minutes and reduce to 350° for 30 minutes.

If you have an oven that is slow in responding to temperature settings or you’re absent minded, set the temperature at 400° and bake for 40 minutes. 

I’ve been informed that vanilla ice cream is de rigeur with peach pie.