What a fun way to spend an afternoon!  I’m so thankful to have a friend who gets as excited about the finer points of pie dough as I do.  We baked three pies for a family party.  Each creation had a delicious and flaky home made crust. vCheck out our two traditional fruit pies with a lattice top and one scrumptious peach and almond cream tart. I made the dough a day in advance so it was ready and waiting in the fridge.  We rolled all the dough on a chilled marble slab and felt very fancy, very professional.  The marble came from Grandmama Clydie and kept our dough cold in a hot kitchen.

The recipe for the peach tart came from David Lebovitz, and boy was it good! Click through for his post and recipe. I also used the crust recipe he suggested for this recipe, which can by found by more clicking through from his website. This pie was was the first to go at the party. It was attacked as soon as I released it onto the table.

I’ve been using a pate brisee recipe from Martha Stewart for all my pies lately.  You can whiz this up in the food processor and save it in the fridge or freezer until you’re ready to bake.  I channel Julia Child and finish the mixing by hand on the counter for an extra flaky crust.  You can click through for full instructions, or if you’re an experienced pie baker, the proportions are:

2 1/2 cups AP flour

4 teaspoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 sticks unsalted butter – cubed and ice cold

about 1/4 cup ice water

For the fruit filling, we used Nathalie Dupree’s book Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking.   You will need about 4 cups of fruit, a little sugar and a little cornstarch.  Yummo!  This was the only picture I could snap of all three together.  As you can see, I wasn’t fast enough!