madbaker | Peach Melba Pie recipe

I need to make this a couple more times to work it out properly. Oh, the horror.

Mixed success on the crust front. The first iteration was quite soggy from all the fruit juice, so I thought I'd bake the crust for 10 minutes beforehand. Except the filled pie got quite brown quickly, so I had to tent it with aluminum foil to prevent burning. Sigh. I tried keeping the top crust separate; the thought was that pre-baking it in a dome would keep air pocketses for future custard-filling. It sank anyway. Also sealed itself to the bottom crust. I was able to pry it off with only a bit of work, but the crust had some tearing and suchlike that I didn't have on the first version. It did leave more room for custard though.

The vanilla custard turns out to be a necessary part of the pie - it mellows out the sweet/sharp raspberry flavor that predominated the first time through. The first version only had about a tablespoon of custard in it...

This was still very soppy, so it was a good thing that I used a pie shield - otherwise there would have been lots of burned pie juice in the oven. It would be better if properly thickened. Maybe I need to cook down the peaches beforehand?

Shrug. I still like it but there's more work to do.

The Recipe

6 ripe peaches (I forgot to weigh them, but they were average size)
2.5 cups raspberries
1/4 cup sugar
4 teaspoons cornstarch

1.5 cups flour
1 stick butter, or half butter and half shortening
5 TBSP water

1 split vanilla bean, or 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups whole milk
6 egg yolks
6 TBSP powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Immerse peaches one at a time in boiling water for 30 seconds each to loosen skins; peel and slice in eighths. Combine fruits, sugar, and cornstarch in a large bowl. Turn and let sit for 15 minutes or more.

Cut butter (or butter/shortening if you prefer a less flavorful but flakier crust) into flour until roughly pea-sized. Gently add water, 1 T at a time, until it coheres. Split in slightly unequal halves and roll out larger piece for bottom crust. Pile fruit into crust, mounding in the middle so that (hopefully) the top crust will leave some air room. Cover with rolloed out top crust and poke steam holes. If attaching the two crusts, create a largish steam hole for later custard pouring. Bake for 15 minutes, then turn oven down to 360 degrees for 25 minutes more.

Scrape seeds from vanilla bean and combine with bean and milk. Or pour in extract, although the vanilla bean will give more flavor. Bring to a boil, remove from heat, cover and leave for 15 minutes. Beat together yolks and powdered sugar. Strain infused milk over yolks while beating, then return to pan and cook for ten minutes while whisking semi-vigorously until the custard thickens.

Remove pie from oven and funnel custard in, or attempt to remove top crust, ladle in custard, and re-attach. Either way return pie to oven for 10 minutes. Tastes better warm.