father's day peach pie

For Father's Day this year, I decided to make a pie instead of a cake, since we had just finished a whole slew of cakes recently (my birthday cake, Mother's Day cake, Grant's birthday cake ...). Since we had fresh peaches in the fridge, and a few baby nectarines on our tree in the backyard, I decided to make peach pie, with pie crust cutouts on top to spell out D-A-D! (If you remember, I had wanted to spell out M-O-M in my Mother's Day cake, but that didn't quite work out).

I sliced up my peaches and nectarines, and tossed them with sugar, flour, and a pinch of salt. Then I made my favorite all-butter pie crust recipe, formed it into two round discs, and let them set in the fridge for about half an hour. Once chilled, I took out once disc and rolled it out big enough to fit my pie plate, gently eased my pie crust into my pie plate, and then crimped the sides.

Then I poured in my peach filling mixture. (The little teeny pieces of fruit are the baby nectarines from our tree!)

Then I baked it in a 425F oven for about 15 minutes to get the crust going, and then reduced it to 350F to bake for another 45 minutes or so.

Once the pie was done, I took out my second disc of pie crust dough from the fridge, rolled it out, and used alphabet cookie cutters to cut out pieces to spell D-A-D. (I only used less than half of the second disc of dough). Then I sprinkled on some sanding sugar and baked them on a cookie sheet at 375F for 10-15 minutes.

Once the cutouts were done, I placed them on top of the finished pie. (Note: you could also place the pie crust letters on top of the unbaked pie, and then bake the entire thing together, but I find that the cutouts don't retain their shape as well).

Mmmmm, pie...

Hope you all had a Happy Father's Day!