Peach Pie

To make the pie dough, sift the dry ingredients together in a bowl.

Cut the cold butter into small 1/4 inch pieces and toss them into the flour mixture.

Add the shortening to the flour as well.

Using your fingers, rub and pinch the butter and shortening, breaking them into pea size pieces.

Keep tossing the flour around as you do it so each piece of butter and shortening gets coated.

Work quickly so that the butter and shortening don't get too warm and soft.

Add the 1/4 cup of ice water to the flour and butter combo.

Use your hands to bring the dough together.

If it's too dry to come together, add more ice water, 1 Tbsp at a time.

Sprinkle your work surface with a bit of flour.

Pinch off about 2 Tbsp's of dough at a time, put that piece on your floured work surface and push the heel of your hand on and it push it away from yourself.

This fancy technique is called fraisage and you're flattening and smearing the butter pieces within the dough creating a flaky crumb for your eventual crust.

Keep working until you've fraisaged every bit of the dough. Put it all back together into two equal balls.

Wrap each one in plastic wrap  and pop it in the fridge for at least an hour and up to 3 days

To make the filling you can start by blanching the peaches.

With a small knife, make an X a the end (not the stem end) of each peach.

Put a big pot of water on to boil. Pop 3 or 4 peaches in the boiling water at a time.

They only need to be in there for about 15 seconds.

Scoop them out with a slotted spoon and put them in a colander in the sink.

Keep blanching until you've done all of your peaches.

The skins will be very easy to slip off because of the X but you can use a small knife to pull away any skin that doesn't come away with a gentle tug.

Take the pie out of the fridge and place it on the counter so it has a chance to warm up and become pliable

Now pit and slice your peaches into 1/2 inch pieces.

Place all of your peach pieces into a generous bowl.

Sprinkle 1/2 cup of sugar over the fruit and stir it together gently.

Let that sit on the counter for an hour, giving it a little stir every once in awhile.

Strain the fruit with a sieve over another bowl.

Reserve a cup of that liquid in a small bowl.

Put your peaches back into the bigger bowl.

Whisk cornstarch, nutmeg and the fruit liquid in the small bowl. Stir that liquid into the fruit.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Roll out one of your balls of dough on a lightly floured surface into a 13 to 14 inch round.

Roll over your rolling pin and and gently transfer to your baking pan.

Don't worry if the edges are torn or uneven - you're going to be crimping the edges at the end.

Gently press the dough into the pan, making sure its snug into the edges.

Leave about an inch of over hang

Roll out your second ball of dough into a 14 inch round. Cut the dough into 3/4 inch wide strips. You want at least ten of them.

Pour the fruit mixture into the unbaked pie crust.

Place half of your strips, arrange parallel rows across the pie, spacing evenly.

Fold every other strip back on itself to just beyond the midway point of the pie. Lay one long strip of dough over the middle of the pie perpendicular to the rest.

Lift your folded ends up and unfold them back into position.

Now take the strips that are under the perpendicular/cross strip and fold them back on themselves. Now place another strip parallel to your first perpendicular strip and lay it across the pie, leaving a little space between them.

Unfold the folded back strips.

Fold back the first strips again and place a third perpendicular strip across the pie.

Unfold those strips.

Now turn the pie around and work back in the same way on the other side. Phew.

Trim excess and pinch together the lattice edges with the over hang of the bottom crust.

Beat an egg and brush the egg over the pie.

Now sprinkle that 1 Tbsp of sugar over the top.

Place the pie on a baking sheet and pop it in the hot oven.

Bake for 40 minutes then reduce the heat to 350 degrees. Bake for about another 40 minutes until the crust is golden brown and the fruit is bubbling. Allow to cool really well before slicing in!