Succulent Peach Pie Filling

This summer I made my first peach pie, and I have been making a ton of it ever since. Mom found a recipe online, and then, as usual, we doctored it up a bit. It's the best peach pie I have ever tasted!  The spices mingle nicely with the sugars in the peach and enhance the flavor making the filling absolutely mouth watering. Yesterday at the market I spotted a peck (eight quarts) of seconds peaches for only four dollars, and ended up getting them for only two dollars! That's a ton of peaches, and I found out this morning that a peck of peaches makes a quadruple batch of peach filling--that's a ton of peach pie.

 

Anyway, if you're interested in making your own peach pie, here's how to go about it.

Once you have your peaches you're going to have to skin them; the skins are really tough and you don't want them in your pie. The best way to skin the peaches is to blanch them in boiling water for 30-45 seconds. Before throwing your peaches in a vat of boiling water, cut an "X" on the peach where the stem is. This will help the peeling process from the blanching.

 
You'll also want to set up an assembly line of bowls--this will make your life much easier. From left to right I had a bowl of peaches ready for the pot, the cauldron of boiling water, a bowl filled with ice water (to stop the cooking), and finally a strainer. Here's how I did it: put enough peaches into the pot of boiling water to create a single layer, about six peaches. Let them boil for 30-45 seconds then put them into the ice water. Fill the pot of boiling water with the next batch of peaches.

While they're boiling take the ice water peaches out, and put them in the strainer. Keep repeating this process until every peach has been blanched. You'll notice that most of the skins are starting to peel by themselves, and that you might only need a knife to help you get started peeling the peaches. Blanching makes the peeling process so much easier!

Blanching also makes pitting the peaches a bit earlier -- the pit isn't so attached to the peaches' grips. To pit I like to make a cut around the peach using one of the "X" legs to make my cut. Stick your thumbs in and pull apart! The peach usually splits right in half. Now you're ready to cut them. Since peaches hold a lot of liquid you'll want to make the slices thicker than other fruit like apples. Once it bakes for 40 minutes, thin slices of peaches will turn to mush, so make them a quarter of an inch thick.

For a single batch of peach pie filling:

5-6 cups sliced peaches
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
2 1/2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt

mix it all together and put into your pie tin! You'll have the best peach pie ever.