Peach, Apricot, Cherry Pie

 I love entertaining in general but have always wondered what it is about the beach that makes me cook even more.  My guess is that I find cooking incredibly relaxing and cathartic and out here, there isn't much to do so I occupy my time by whipping up food in the kitchen. 

Josh and I made this pie today.  He did all the lattice work, pitted the cherries and was a great sous chef.

You can either buy already made crust or make it.  We made it.  Made the crust around 11am and rolled it out around 2pm.

Pate Brisee (classic pie crust )

Use a cuisinart, makes life much really easier.

2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. kosher salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, very cold, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup really cold water

Put the flour, butter and sugar in the cuisinart.  Use the dough blade.  Turn it on until the butter looks like coarse crumbs.  Now you add the water.  This is the tricky part.  I am at the beach, so the air is so full of water that you actually need more water than less.  So in the city, I use 1/4 cup but out here I use 1/2 cup water.  Pour in the water, and pulse until the mixture becomes dough.  Divide in half and roll each piece in plastic wrap, put in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.  You could actually keep it in the fridge over night or in the freezer for a month but I've never had success keeping it in the freezer.

Roll out each dough separately between either plastic wrap or parchment paper.  Makes it easier and less mess.  Then put in the fridge again, rolled out, to get cold before working with the dough again, about 15 minutes.  Put the dough over the pie crust, push down and let the extra dough hang over.  Use a fork to prick holes on the bottom.  Put back in the fridge.  Next time, I will take step by step pics as I make a lots of pies over the summer. 

We made a lattice pie so it is a tad more complicated.  Take the other half of the dough that you rolled out, and use a knife or pizza cutter and cut even strips.  Then on parchment paper, over lap the pieces to create the effect.  Take the pie out of the fridge, pour in the fruit ( recipe below ) and flip the lattice over very quickly and crimp around the edges.  If you don't want to do this, just lay over the other piece of dough you have rolled out and cut an X in the middle so when the pie cooks, steam gets out.

Take the egg yolk and cream, whisk together and then brush over the top of the pie, and sprinkle sugar over that. 

Before putting the pie in the oven, I take tin foil and curl it underneath the edges of the pie ends so when the pie is in the oven, the edges don't melt over but stay in place.  It is truly key for a beautiful pie.  They actually make gadgets for this but I don't have one.

Put in the oven at 400, for 20 minutes and then take it down to 350 for about 40 more minutes.  After 20,  I put tin foil lightly over the top of the pie so the crust didn't burn.

Filling:.

4 large peaches, pitted and sliced into about 8 sliced, not to thin and not too thick.
1 lb. of apricots, pitted and sliced into 6-8 pieces depending on the size of the apricot
1 lb of cherries (we used half red and half yellow) a pitter is an essential accessory to do the job, cut in half
2/3-3/4 cup of granulated sugar depending on how sweet the fruit is
3 tbsp. cornstarch
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
half of a really juicy lemon ( 2 tbsp. )
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp. cream  (although not essential)
I picked up sugar that is made for sugar cookies to sprinkle over the top

Mix together all the fruit with the sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice and salt.  Filling complete.