Nectarine Pie

My 16-year-old sister visited last week and wanted to learn to bake something new. I had taught her to make red velvet cupcakes last January, which she then made and sold with resounding success at her Quiz Bowl bake sale (though my sister, Mikaela, who is partial to cream cheese frosting, may have purchased most of them.)

This time, wanting to broaden her range, we settled on pie. And, wanting to do something a little different, we chose a Nectarine Pie. The result was mixed. Though the crust and the crumb topping were excellent, the filling wasn’t quite sweet enough. If I were to make this again, I would definitely add more sugar – and possibly macerate the nectarines before putting them in the pie plate.

The original recipe came from All Recipes – here is my modified version.

Ingredients

Filling:
2/3 cup white sugar
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup heavy whipping cream
¼ tsp vanilla
4 large nectarines

Crust:
7 tbsp butter
1 ½ tbsp cold water
1 ¼ c flour

Crumb Topping:
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup flour
¼ cup butter

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Prepare pie crust. Melt butter in small saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in cold water and flour. Mix just, until blended. Form the dough into a ball. Place the ball between two sheets of waxed paper, lightly floured. Roll out to 1/8 inch and line a 10-inch pie plate. Trim overhang.
3. Combine sugar, flour cinnamon, heavy cream and vanilla extract. Set aside.
4. Slice nectarines (you can remove the skin if you feel so inclined – I didn’t). Place in pie shell. Pour cream mixture around the nectarines.
5. Prepare crumb topping. Cut the butter into the brown sugar and flour until butter is in pea-sized chunks. Sprinkle over top of pie.
6. Bake at 400 for 45 minutes. (Put a baking sheet under pie plate to catch any drippings – I didn’t do this and ended up with a disconnected smoke detector and a very smoky apartment).