Stone Fruit Pie with Almond Streusel

Welcome summer!  School’s out and the sun is shining.  Best of all (okay…school being out is actually best of all) it’s time for summer produce–tomatoes, basil, zucchini, strawberries, cherries, watermelon, and peaches.  Especially peaches.  Fresh summer peaches just can’t be beat.  If you ask me, peaches taste best when eaten standing over the sink.  There’s just something so nostalgic about having fresh peach juice all over your mouth and running down your arm.  I can’t help but picture myself, six years old, sporting pig tails and a slightly sunburned nose, back in Oklahoma in the house my grandfather built.  That sink was the best peach eating spot in the entire world.  So Mammo, Pappo, this pie is for you.  Thank you for all the wonderful summer days on the farm, going fishing, swimming at the lake, playing Old Maid, and eating summer pies just like this one.  I love you and miss you both everyday–especially summer days.

Stone Fruit Pie with Almond Streusel

adapted from Food and Wine, June 2012

Ingredients:

1/2 recipe Martha’s perfect pate brisee

For the streusel:

1/3 c. light brown sugar

4 TBSP all-purpose flour

4 TBSP slivered almonds

4 TBSP rolled oats

4 amaretti cookies, crumbled

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

6 TBSP cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

For the filling:

2 1/2 lbs. assorted stone fruits, such as cherries, apricots, peaches and plums, sliced 1/3-in. thick (peel peaches and plums first–this is how)

1/3 c. sugar (I used vanilla sugar)

1 TBSP fresh lemon juice

1/4 c. cornstarch

1 TBSP tapioca

Directions:

1.  To  make the streusel, combine the dry ingredients in a medium bowl and stir to combine. Add the butter and, with a pastry cutter or yourhands, cut or rub the butter into the mixture evenly. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes.

2.  Remove pie dough from refrigerator and, on a lightly floured work surface, roll pie dough to a 14-in. round, about 1/8 in. thick.  Fold the dough in half and transfer it to a deep dish pie plate.  Unfold dough and gently press it into the plate. Trim overhanging dough to 1/2 in. and fold it under itself; crimp decoratively.  Freeze pie shell for 10 minutes.

3.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  While oven is heating, make the filling by tossing sliced fruit with sugar and lemon juice
and let stand for 5 minutes for sugar to dissolve.  Stir in the cornstarch and tapioca. Scrape the fruit into the pie shell in an even layer.  Remove streusel from refrigerator and scatter the evenly over the top.

4.  Bake pie in the lower third of the oven for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, until the fruit starts to bubble around the sides.  If sides brown too quickly (mine did) cover with foil.  Transfer pie to a wire rack and let cool to room temperature. Cut into wedges
and serve with vanilla ice cream.  Pie is best served the day it is made, but will keep, refrigerated, up to three days.  Serves 8-12.

*Note:  If you can’t find amaretti cookies, just omit and increase flour, almonds, and oats to 6 TBSP each.