Natasha Pickowicz's Peach Jam Hand Pie

Sure, deep dish-style fruit pies are a summer staple, but all too easy — and tragic — for the filling to get gluey or runny, or the pie dough to bake up soggy and pale. This big hand pie delivers all the blissful pleasures of this americana classic — flaky, golden crust swaddling a sticky, juicy fruit filling — but with so much more ease and expedience. This recipe starts with an intense peach compote — it's basically jam, but with much less sugar — which gets smeared into a bran-spiked pie dough. Instead of a fiddly lattice lid, the pie dough is cut into wide, chubby strips, which are easier to assemble, and still looks great. Even better, this hand pie is out of the oven in 40 minutes and can be enjoyed straight away — no need to cool, just dive right in.

Ingredients

• 5-6 medium-sized peaches
• ½ cup granulated white sugar, plus more for sprinkling on the tart        
• 1 lemon
• Pinch salt
• 1 pack pie dough, see recipe below
• 1 egg white                

Pie Dough:

• 2 ½ cup (300g) all-purpose flour    
• ¼ cup (20g) bran flakes        
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt        
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• ¾ cup (170g) unsalted butter, cut into ½” cubes and cold
• ½ cup (120g) ice cold water    

Directions

1. Slice the peaches in half and remove the pits. Chop the peaches into small, bite-sized pieces about an inch wide and place in an All-Clad D5 3 quart sauce pot. Add the sugar, the juice and zest of one lemon, and a pinch of salt. Stir and let sit for at least 30 minutes, to allow the fruit to macerate. (This speeds up the cooking time of the jam, which allows the flavor of the fruit to remain fresh and bright).
2. Turn the heat on to medium and bring the peach mixture to a simmer. Let cook, stirring occasionally, until the fruit has broken down and softened into a thick jam, about 20 to 25 minutes. If the mixture feels dry in the pot before the peaches are fully cooked, you can reduce the heat and add a little water, one tablespoon at a time, to loosen the mixture. The compote is finished when the bubbles in the compote are small and sputter a bit, like lava. 
3. Remove from the heat and let cool completely; the compote should be thick, glossy and sticky, with plenty of acidity and brightness. You should have about two cups of jam. (The compote can be made up to three days in advance if stored in the fridge; or frozen for up to one month). 

1. Add the all-purpose flour, bran, sugar, and kosher salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse twice to blend. Add the cold, cubed butter all at once and pulse to combine. The butter should mostly be the size of a pea.
2. Jogging the pulse button of the food processor as quickly as you can, stream in the water, so that it hits the blade and is sprayed in every direction, thus coating the flour mixture indirectly. The mixture should look like damp, slightly clumpy breadcrumbs, with some larger pieces of butter.
3. Dump the crumbs onto a large sheet of plastic wrap and pull the sides of plastic up and press the edges into the center, pressing down to seal. Press out the extra air with a rolling pin until the pack is airtight, about half an inch tall, and 6 inches wide. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before rolling out.

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Remove the chilled, rested pie dough from the fridge, unwrap, and discard the plastic wrap. Cut the pie dough in half, and stack the two halves on top of one another, which helps create flaky layers in the final pie. Slice the dough in half again, setting aside one half for the chunky lattice top.
2. Roll out one piece of the dough on a large piece of floured parchment paper until it is a rectangle about 13 by 10 inches wide. Sprinkle a little flour on top and underneath the dough if it sticks to your rolling pin at all.
3. Next, roll out the second piece of pie dough into a sheet roughly the same size – aim for a square about 12 inches across. Cut the square into four equally sized strips
4. Transfer the rectangular sheet of dough, plus its parchment paper, to a Pro-Release baking sheet. Spooned the chilled peach compote all over, leaving a 1-cm border around the edges. Smooth it flat with a spatula. Center two strips of pie dough running down the length of the jam-topped pie, leaving one inch of space between them. Carefully lift back the right lengthwise strip, then place a third strip running across the pie widthwise. Then set back the lifted strip to cover, creating the basketweave pattern. Next, lift up the left lengthwise strip, and place the final fourth strip running widthwise, just below the third strip, leaving one inch of space between them. Pinch the edges of the pie to the lattice strips on top to seal. Roll the excess pie dough over itself, creating a rustic crust edge. 
5. Brush the entire surface of the pie with the egg white, then sprinkle with a tablespoon or two of granulated white sugar. 
6. Transfer to the oven and bake until the fruit filling is bubbling, and the pie is deeply golden all over, about 40 minutes. 
7. Let cool for 10 minutes on a drying rack, then slice into rectangles. Delicious the next day as well, and of course with ice cream or whipped cream.

Pro Tip

Skip making your own compote and use a delicious store-bought jam — just make sure it isn't too sweet. You can always add a big squeeze of lemon juice or a small spoonful of a fruit or wine-based vinegar to season the jam and improve acidity and brightness.

RECIPE BY

Chef Natasha Pickowicz

Natasha Pickowicz is a New York City–based chef and writer. She is a three-time James Beard Foundation Award finalist. Much of her pastry work explores the relationship between baking and social justice, including ongoing collaborations with seminal New York City institutions like Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, God’s Love We Deliver, the Brigid Alliance, and Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, for whom she produced a massive city-wide bake sale, raising more than $150,000 between 2017 and 2019. Currently, Pickowicz runs the pastry pop-up called Never Ending Taste, which has been held at NYC’s Superiority Burger, Brooklyn’s the Four Horsemen, the American-Vietnamese bakery Ba. n B., the Taiwanese tearoom T. Company, Los Angeles’s Kismet, and the legendary Chino Farm in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Pickowicz’s recipes and writing have been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bon App.tit, Saveur, Food & Wine, New York magazine, Cherry Bombe, and many other publications. Follow her on Instagram at @natashapickowicz.