Peach Pie

• 3 cups flour
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 7 Tablespoons all vegetable shortening
• 10 Tablespoons chilled unsalted butter
• Cut the butter into quarter inch pieces and freeze for 30 minutes
• 10 - 12 Tablespoons Ice Water

• 6 or 7 ripe peaches
• 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 4 Tablespoons potato starch flour


• Bake at 425 for 25 minutes then rotate pie and reduce heat to 375 and bake for 30 more minutes.

I use a Cuisinart to pulse the flour, sugar + salt. Then add chilled shortening and pulse 10 seconds.
Next add the frozen butter pieces and pulse for 20 seconds. Turn the mixture into a medium sized bowl. Sprinkle 5 T ice water over the dough mixture and fold to combine. I use a heavy spoon for maximum folding power to moisten the dough. Keep adding the ice water by Tablespoons until the dough is very moist and cleans the bowl as you do the folding and mixing.

Divide the dough in two pieces. Make 2 dough disks, one about 4" in diameter and the other about 5" diameter. Wrap each dough disk separately in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the disks for 1 hour. This helps the dough get evenly moist.

After the dough has rested and is evenly moist you are ready to roll. Roll out the larger disk for lattice strips. You will want 8 strips. You can use a ruler and pizza cutter to form the strips. Put them on top of a parchment paper covered inverted baking sheet; put the strips in the freezer for around 30 minutes. Roll out the pie bottom crust and place it in a 9 or 10" pie pan. It needs to over hang the pie plate by 1 or 2 inches. Chill it in the fridge for 30 minutes. At this point place your oven rack in the lower middle of the oven and then pre heat your oven to 425.

Peel the peaches. I usually wait until they are super ripe so they are easy to peel after running them under warm water and loosening the skins. My test pie this year was made with not so ripe peaches and it was actually just as good as a pie made with really ripe peaches. I quarter the peach and then make 4 slices from each quarter. Combine them with the filling ingredients. If they are super juicy you might want to add more of the potato starch to thicken the filling so it does not run over in the oven later. I guess you could use corn starch instead but you are on your own as far as how much to use.

After the pie shell has chilled for 30 minutes you can put the filling in it. Then you will place your top crust on or construct your lattice top. When joining dough to dough be sure you use a little water so it will really hold together in the oven. Bake at 425 for 25 minutes; reduce heat to 375, rotate the pie and bake for 30 more minutes. You can bake on a baking sheet if you are fearful of the pie running over; it usually happens at the very end of the baking. Allow the pie to cool for 2 hours.