Baked Sunday Mornings: Peaches and Dream Pie

I was a little weary of this week's Baked Sunday Mornings assignment, the Peaches and Dream Pie.  To begin with, I almost never make pies, so I don't have a lot of experience in this area.  But especially after a disappointing experience with the Baked Explorations blackberry pie two weeks ago, I was concerned.   My anxiety was exacerbated by the fact that I have never tasted or even heard of a sour cream and peach pie, so I had no idea what the peaches and cream pie was supposed to look like or taste like. 

The crust for this pie is the "classic pie dough" (also used in the blackberry pie and buttermilk pie) that is very easy to roll out and handle.  After you crimp the crust and chill it, you put the peaches into the pie shell (I used diced ripe white peaches; I am a fruit racist and buy only white peaches, not yellow), and pour over a mixture of eggs, sour cream, honey, salt, dark brown sugar, and flour. Then you sprinkle on a layer of topping (cold butter cut into dark brown sugar and flour), and bake.  The recipe instructs you to bake the pie for 45 minutes, or until the filling is bubbly.  After 45 minutes, the top was bubbly, but since I've been burned twice by undercooked pies from Baked Explorations, I left the pie in the oven for an extra 10 minutes out of an abundance of caution.

Even though I had no idea what the pie was supposed to look like, I was very surprised at the way it looked when I pulled it out of the oven.  Before baking, the pie topping was a mixture of sandy crumbs, and so I was expecting the crumbs to stay intact during baking.  Instead, the entire topping layer was melted together.  It looked nothing like a fruit pie.  I also had no idea what the interior of the pie was supposed to look like, so I was eager to cut it open after it cooled (the recipe instructs you to let the pie cool overnight, which seems slightly excessive).

Due to the fact that I used white peaches, the interior had a pasty-looking monochromatic color scheme.  The sour cream mixture baked up to look something like the granular ricotta layer in the middle of a lasagna.  I regret using white peaches instead of yellow (or even canned ones, for that matter), because not only would yellow peaches have provided more color contrast, but I think they would have given the pie a better overall flavor profile.  The mildness of the white peaches was completely overshadowed by the strong brown sugar flavor in the cream layer and the topping.  In fact, it was difficult to tell that this was actually a peach pie at all.  In addition, my bottom pie crust was completely undercooked.

I didn't enjoy this pie at all.  While the topping layer was tasty and the sour cream component was interesting enough, the lack of peach flavor was a real disappointment, and the soggy crust was just the last straw.  The Baked Explorations classic pie dough might be incredibly easy to handle, but now that I've had three pies in a row come out with a undercooked bottom crust, I'm over it.

I'm just thankful there aren't any more pies on the Baked Sunday Mornings schedule!

Recipe: "Peaches and Dream Pie," from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.


Previous Posts:

• "Just Half a Slice Please... The Top Half!: Buttermilk Pie," July 12, 2011.
• "Baked Sunday Mornings: Blackberry Pie," July 3, 2011.