Making apple candy is SO EASY, you just need to make sure you have the time. Also a non-stick pot is pretty excellent.

APPLE CANDY SYRUP
Time: 3-4 hours
Amount: 1 1/2 cups

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 cups apple juice
• 1/2 cup sugar

DIRECTIONS:

1. Add apple juice and sugar to pan and heat on low for 3-4 hours until reduced, stirring often.
2. When the apple juice has become a thick syrup, take off heat.

Grab a big bowl of vanilla (or any other barely sweetened ice cream), toast some pecans, and pour the hot apple candy over the two for a great sundae. The candy will harden on contact with the ice cream giving it a delicious and sweet candy coating. Take THAT Hershey’s syrup. It’s also super good on crepes (and there are about a dozen people from a brunch I went to who can back me up on that).

I hope you’ve finished all your dinner BECAUSE IT IS DESSERT TIME.

PEACH PRALINE CRUMBLE PIE
Time: about 2 hours
Amount: 1 pie

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup finely chopped pecans
• 11 tbsp unsalted butter (seriously)
• 1/2 cup roughly chopped pecans
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/2 cup & 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 cup & 2 tbsp white sugar
• 5 large peaches, cut into thin slices
• 1 tub ice cream

DIRECTIONS:

Crust:

1. Combine the flour, salt, finely chopped pecans, and 8 tbsp butter in a large mixing bowl. Work the butter into the dry ingredients until it is all well combined.
2. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Start working on the pralines. Idle hands are the devil’s playground.
3. Lightly flour & knead the dough, then roll out. I used half for the bottom crust which rolled out pretty well, but I could not for the life of me get the top crust to roll out, so I just crumbled it up a little bit and sprinkled it on top of my pie.

Pralines:

1. In a sauce pan on medium-low heat, put the milk, 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of white sugar. Stir until it starts to boil.
2. Add the roughly chopped pecans. You could use whole pecans, but they do get a little unwieldy when you’re stirring them.
3. Keep stirring until the syrup starts to thicken up. I’ve never used a candy thermometer, so I don’t really know what temperature they should hit. Sorry. It shouldn’t be hardening at all at this stage.
4. Take about 1/3 cup out and store it in a microwave safe bowl. This is going to be the best drizzle you’ve ever tasted. Let it cool before covering and refrigerating it.
5. Keep cooking the rest until it starts to stick to your spoon or spatula, then add 1 tbsp of butter. Keep stirring until it bubbles up and is thick on your spatula.
6. At this point, pour it onto a piece of parchment paper. You can spoon out individual pralines instead, but I prefer to just chop it up and sprinkle it on top of the pie: your call.

Pie:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. On your crust layer your peach slices. I used both white and yellow peaches because I like the two flavors mixed together, but it is up to you.
3. Sprinkle the last two tablespoons of white sugar on top and cut up the last two tablespoons of butter and sprinkle them as well.
4. Put your top crust (or crumble in my case) on the pie.
5. Bake for 25 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.
6. Let it cool, add the crumbled pralines, cut, and serve with ice cream.
7. Microwaved that praline drizzle we reserved for about 20 seconds and slather it on top of the vanilla. Perfection.

Now my pie was a little bit dry, so I HAD to serve it with vanilla ice cream.  So. Good. If you get a little worked up because your dough isn’t staying together, feel free to add an egg yolk and a touch more flour. It should firm up nicely then. Also, if you want to go sans top crust, feel free, but you might want to blanch the peaches first.

I am going to Georgia tomorrow. I went to a farmer’s market on Sunday. These two events bring big things! Also, after so many savory dishes, I guess I owe you something sweet, don’t I?

Well, I’m not going to let my southern roots down by giving you some frou frou french ganache. I’m going to give you something proper Georgian. You’d better get ready because this is guaranteed to bring out your southern drawl.

WHITE PEACH AND BLUEBERRY PIE
Time: <2 hours
Amount: A pie’s worth. Weren’t you listening? 

INGREDIENTS

Shell:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract/flavor
• 3 tbsp, 1 tsp cold water

Filling

• 1 pound peaches. I used white peaches because they were on sale at the farmer’s market that USF just started.
• 6 ounces of blueberries. They should be sweet and juicy.
• 1 tbsp butter.
• 1 tbsp sugar.

DIRECTIONS

Shell:

1. Mix flour, sugar, salt, and butter until dough is crumbly.
2. In a separate bowl, beat egg yolk, water and vanilla.
3. Add wet mixture to dry, and knead until it is a solid piece of dough. Refrigerate for about an hour. Start working on your filling; no reason to waste time, is there? Unless there’s something great on TV. Or you have to tend to your laundry. Or you’d like a nap. Who am I to judge your life?
4. Preheat Oven to 350. 
5. Cut dough in half (make it like the halves in that peanut butter commercial where the one greedy asshole gets his comeuppance when his younger brother gets to choose the halves, and he is stuck with the tiny sliver he was going to foist off on said bro), and roll out one piece into a large flat disk. Place one the bottom of your pie pan. I used a 1.6 liter corningware ceramic, because I don’t have a pie pan.
6. Poke the crust repeatedly with a fork. Then bake the crust for 15 minutes.
7. Turn down the oven to 350.

Filling:

1. Melt butter in a pot over medium heat.
2. Add peaches, blueberries, and sugar.
3. Cook over medium to medium low heat for 20 or so minutes until the peaches are soft to the touch, and the blueberries have given the sauce a great purple color. If the filling has reduced too much, add a few teaspoons of water.

Pie:

1. Put the filling into the crust.
2. Roll out the second, smaller half of the dough and place it on top. If you cover the entirety of the top, be sure to poke a few holes in top. Using only a few strips (and cooking in a smaller vessel than a standard pie pan), I had plenty left over. You can save it or you can roll it flat and turn it into shortbread cookies.
3. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes until top crust is golden brown.

Serve it still warm with ice cream, whipped cream, custard, or sweet yogurt (I live in California now, so I apparently I feel the need to supply healthy additions to a dish that has over a 1/4 cup of butter in it). If I had anything to choose, I’d pick a lightly sweetened gelato; in actuality, I ate mine plain for dessert, breakfast and dessert again because ice cream isn’t in my budget.