Peaches are at their sweetest and juiciest right now- literally dripping with flavor. If you bake one thing this Summer, let it be this Farm Style Peach Skillet Pie. Serve it up with good vanilla bean ice-cream and I promise you, it will make your day. It is a very easy, no fuss recipe – with no peeling of the peaches, just wash and cut, and no letting the dough rest. It takes about 30 minutes of hands-on time before it goes right into the oven. When it comes out, it’s fragrant, deeply golden, bubbly…..and oh so delicious! Give it a try this weekend.
Farm Style Peach Skillet Pie
A simple old fashioned recipe for Peach Skillet Pie that can be adapted with any fresh fruit, using a standard 10 ½ inch cast iron skillet.
- Prep Time: 25 mins
- Cook Time: 50 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 mins
- Yield: 8
- Category: Dessert
- Cuisine: Northwest fruit Pie
Ingredients
- Filling
- 8-9 medium peaches, perfectly ripe – sliced into ½-¾ inch slices ( about 6-7 cups)
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- ¼ -½ cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup sugar ( more to taste)
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon butter- optional
- Pie Crust:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2⁄3 cup cold butter – cut into 5-6 pieces
- ⅓ cup cold water
- ——–
- 1 beaten egg
- sugar for sprinkling
- fresh thyme or garnish
- serve with vanilla ice-cream ( optional)
- 10.5 inch cast iron skillet
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450F
- Gently rub peach fuzz off with a terry cloth towel or rub it off under cold running water. Pat dry. Leaving the clean, defuzzed skins on, slice peaches into ½-¾ inch thick wedges. Place in a large bowl. Sprinkle with lemon juice, flour, sugar salt and spices, mix very gently, to combine. If you like a juicy pie, Like I do, only add ¼ cup flour. Or, for thicker consistancy, add up to ¼ cup more flour. Taste for sweetness. The sweeter and riper the peaches the less sugar you will need- but note you do need at least ½ cup sugar to get the right consistency when baking. Add more sugar to taste. Set aside. The lemon juice is not just for favor, it adds vibrancy to the color of the cooked peaches and helps the consistancy- so don’t leave this out. 😉
- Make the pie crust:
- Place flour and salt in a food processor and pulse to mix. Add butter, then pulse repeatedly (15-20 times) until it resembles course sand with some larger pea sized clumps of butter.
- Turn processor on and gradually add water,just until until dough clumps together and forms a shaggy ball. You amy need to add a little more or little less. Just until it clumps together.
- Gather up and place on a well floured surface, flouring the top as well. Form in to a round ball, then flatten into a neat and tidy 1 inch thick disk about 7 inches wide. Neaten the edges, flip and begin rolling it out from the center out to the edges- while keeping the underneath surface well floured to prevent sticking. Roll out to about ¼ inch thick or roughly 16 inches in diameter. Carefully lift pie dough and place in a 10 ½ inch wide cast iron skillet, gently pressing it into corners and sides. Brush the bottom and sides with the beaten egg- this helps the crust to not get soggy.
- Add the pie filling, and arrange peaches nicely just in the top middle area where they will show. Dot with a little butter if you like.
- Fold the raggedy edges of the crust over it self about ½ inch or so, just to clean up the edges.
- Then carefully draw the crust up over the filling, folding and overlapping in the same direction, every 2 inches or so. It need not be perfect.
- Brush the top of crust with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar.
- Place in the middle of a 450 F oven for 12 minutes.
- Turn heat down to 350F and continue baking until deeply golden and bubbly, about 35-40 minutes.
- If crust starts to get too brown, cover the edges with foil – this doesn’t usually happen, but every oven is different!
- When done, let rest 15 minutes before cutting into it. Serve with vanilla ice-cream and enjoy!!
18
This looks like a very delicious pie and I’m ALWAYS glad to find another recipe to use my cast iron skillets. I have just one question. Is there any particular reason why the dough for this crust isn’t chilled before rolling into the crust? In every other technique it resembles many other crust, all which are chilled after forming into a disk after processing it together. I’m assuming it won’t hurt anything to chill it before rolling it into a crust if the crust is made a day or so in advance.
★★★★
Yes, you can absolutely make it ahead and chill it! My goal here was to create a “quick” recipe that one could whip up in a relatively short time, so I skipped the step, and it surprisingly turned out great. I too have always let dough “rest” beforehand, so this was an experiment and everyone agreed, the crust turned out divine!