What I Made for Dessert :: Pi Day Buttermilk Peach Pie

I like cake, but I LOVE pie, and I've been baking a bit more than usual lately. Pi Day is a wonderful excuse reason to bake a pie!

I was on a mission today to find a deep-dish pie plate and, after four stores, I finally found what I was looking for at Ross (for $7!). I was specifically looking for a deep-dish pie plate because I'm a fan of custardy/creamy pie fillings and I want to be able to pour in as much as possible. When I was making the Pear Pie the other day, I couldn't use all of the custard filling because my regular pie plate wouldn't hold it all. That won't be a problem with this new pie plate. :)

This recipe for Buttermilk Peach Pie is really simple and comes together quite quickly. I basically spent all of my time decorating the crust! Speaking of crust, I'm a lazy, cowardly baker and I'm afraid of making my own crust. So I usually buy the Trader Joe's frozen crust. For this pie I used both crusts that come in the package. The second crust was for the numbers and to add some crust up the side of the pie plate to avoid filling spillage/overflow. The rest of it I used to make the braid for the decorative edge. Having never done that before, I made the very rookie mistake of sticking the braid to the side of the crust without a binder.

As a result, the braid softened in the oven and fell into the filling:

It's still kinda pretty, so I don't mind the way it turned out, but next time I'll adhere any decorative edges properly. As for the top of the pie, pretty as it is with just the peaches, I was inspired by the decoration on this pie ... the large numbers are so cute:

[I can't seem to find the original photo source for this picture; I first came across it on Pinterest.]

I freehand cut my numbers using a paring knife and I didn't measure anything so the numbers aren't all the same size, but it came out OK. Maya cut the PIE "plaque" at the bottom. Because the filling is liquidy, I couldn't bake the raw dough numbers directly on top of the filling without them sinking. So I baked the extra pieces on a separate baking sheet for about 15 minutes and then placed them on the pie after I took the pie out of the oven. Maybe it was the deeper pie plate, but it took almost an hour for the pie to cook completely.

 

The verdict? Husband thought it was better than the professionally-baked blueberry pie he had at work for their Pi Day celebration!