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Bourbon and Brown Sugar Peach Pie

As far as I can remember, I’ve always been Team Cake. Moist, fluffy cake topped with creamy, delicious frosting. Is there anything better? The first thing I ever obsessively baked was cake — for me, there is something especially cathartic about bringing a cake together, especially when it came to frosting it. Whether opting for smooth edges or rustic swirls, I found decorating cake to be much more forgiving and easier than anything to do with pie.

Because pie. Ugh, don’t get me started.

I’ve never been the world’s best pie baker. At worst, my pie crusts came out soggy. At best, despite finally mastering the tasty flavor and texture, they came out ugly. Shrunken or over-stretched crusts, broken and shrunken lattices… name any kind of pie blemish that you can imagine, and I guarantee you that all my pies have had it. Even after afternoons spent with superior pie bakers and several repeated trials of the same recipe, my pies were inconsistent. Sure, they gradually became better in flavor and flakier in texture… but in terms of looks, they still didn’t hold a candle the gorgeous latticework on Apt 2B Baking Co and Food52. I silently, jealously admired their crusts from a far and decided to avoid making pie as much as possible. Leave it to the experts, ya know?

But all the beautiful berries and stonefruit in season have convinced me that it’s time to face my fear. I was going to master the lattice pie this summer, whether or not it killed me.


My first attempt was a few weeks ago, with a cherry pie so unphotogenic that it didn’t even make it to this blog. After seeing Elizabeth’s beautiful wide lattice pie, I’d tried to recreate it on my own without paying too close attention to the instructions. And there we have it — Lesson #1: Pay Attention to the Recipe. A lattice pie isn’t something you can really wing.

My second attempt is this bourbon and brown sugar peach pie. I literally watched and re-watched this Food52 video on how to weave a lattice crust like 500 times. And it paid off! Pre-baked, it looked awesome(!!!)... and then I pulled it out of the oven. My heart sank. The crust had shrunk a little and pulled away from the pie rim, as well as puffing up weirdly at certain places. I’d used the wrong kind of egg wash, and it hadn’t turned into the beautiful golden brown that I wanted.

Disappointed, I almost didn’t share this pie with you guys — but then I grabbed a fork and took a bite. Despite its pale appearance, the crust was perfect! Flaky and tender, with a slight tang from dash of apple cider vinegar recommended by the Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book. But I’ve written about this pie crust before, so it wasn’t anything new or worthwhile to add to the blog.

Instead, the peach, bourbon, and brown sugar filling is really what made the cut.


I’d trusted my intuition and used only a couple tablespoons of brown sugar in the filling. Most peach pie recipes have way too much sugar — but too much doesn’t allow the fruit’s natural sweetness and flavor shine! And with a dash of bourbon and a pinch of cinnamon? Perfect.

So watch this space. I’m gonna try making a pie a few more times before summer’s over, just so I can say I’ve nailed the lattice. Next time will be attempt #3. Keep your fingers crossed; they say the third time’s the charm.


Some baker's notes:

Instead of listing my typical baker's notes, I'll talk about what went wrong and how I think I'll fix it:

• Oven temperature was too hot. I winged this recipe and just googled a bunch of peach pie recipes. Almost all instructed me to bake the pie at a temperature between 425 - 450 (F) for a quarter of the time needed to bake, before lowering to a cooler temperature (usually 350 (F)) to bake for the rest of the time. I'm pretty sure that this higher temperature is what caused my pie crust to shrink; apparently gluten tends to tighten in higher heat, which causes the shrinkage. Next time, I'll try baking the pie at 350 (F) for the entire time.


• Cream washes aren't as good as egg washes. Since I was running low on eggs, I'd hastily decided to brush the pie dough with cream instead of the traditional, recommended egg wash. Mistake. The crust came out too pale, almost looking undercooked. You really gotta stick with egg washes for that golden color.

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Black Sesame Sugar Cookies with Lemon Curd

A few weekends ago, Erlend and I headed over to the Inner Richmond neighborhood to pick up his surprise Princess Cake for my birthday and to do some grocery shopping in the hood's cheap Asian supermarkets. Wandering down Clement Street is a treat in itself — the avenue is lined with dim sum shops full of shelves containing fresh hand-pulled noodles and sesame balls, as well as Chinese rotisseries proudly displaying Peking duck and slabs of golden, roasted pork.

On a whim, we wandered into a nondescript store that advertised xiao long bao soup dumplings and nothing more. Inside was a whole display case offering not only every type of dumpling imaginable (soup or otherwise!), but also a multitude of buns. Steamed pork, lotus paste, or egg yolk buns — there they all were, gleaming at us invitingly. In my excitement, I ordered my default: xiao long bao soup dumplings and a red bean-filled sesame ball. Erlend, always the more patient of us two, took his time to consider all the options available and walked away with zhir ma bao, a steamed bun filled with black sesame paste.

I've always considered myself pretty well-versed in Chinese food (since Chinese cuisine in general tends to be my favorite food), but I'd never had anything like the black sesame paste bun before. The black sesame paste inside almost had the texture and taste of Middle Eastern halva, but made with Chinese black sesame seeds instead of the white ones used for tahini. One bite and I was obsessed —I had forgotten how good black sesame dessert could be! Despite the fact that we'd finished our shopping, I made Erlend go back to the store with me so I could pick up a giant bag of black sesame seeds to play with:


I've made black sesame desserts before (most notably, these black sesame buttermilk rolls with goat milk glaze), but it's easy to forget about the ingredient as it's always being overshadowed by matcha, the dessert ingredient du jour. This time, I ended up making black sesame sugar cookies instead of steamed buns, mostly because I left my bamboo steamer back in Portland and, truth be told, my bun folding and rolling skills could use some work.

The cookies themselves, however, are an homage to the buns we discovered that morning — unapologetically black sesame flavored, with nothing else to hide the unique toasty, woody flavor of black sesame. Although I loved the cookies on their own, I decided to brighten them up with a little dollop of fresh, homemade lemon curd:


The two are an odd flavor combination at first, but you'll soon find that the tart sweetness of the lemon is actually a brilliant companion to the heavy black sesame.

And don't worry! As for those zhir ma bao buns that I talked about with such wonder, I'm working on a recipe, I swear. But let's eat these cookies first.


Some baker's notes:

• Black sesame seeds are available in the bulk sections of fancy grocery stores like Whole Foods, or Asian specialty supermarkets. You can also find them online.


• If you want to break down the cooking time, you can make the lemon curd up to 1 month in advanced! The curd keeps well in an airtight glass jar in the refrigerator.


• The cookie recipe starts by instructing you on how to make black sesame sugar using an oven and a food processor, thanks to this utterly genius recipe by Mandy of Lady and Pups. The recipe will make slightly more than what's needed for the rolls, and you can store whatever's leftover in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 month (similarly, you can make the sugar in advanced for up to 1 month). It's important to refrigerate the sugar since black sesame seeds have a ton of oil in them and go rancid fast. However, my leftover sugar never lasts that long — I often find myself reaching for it and stirring it into my green tea or coffee. You can also roll the raw cookie dough in a small bowl of extra sugar before baking to give the cookies a black sesame sugar glaze.
  

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Available link for download