nature vs. nature

I like pie. I love the way the sweet, soft inner fruit makes the crumbly crust moist but still crispy. Fresh sour cherry pie is what I grew up on and how I came to love pie. We don't have fresh sour cherries nearby - the season is over anyhow. We have a bakery nearby that makes delicious pie- but we're trying to save.

I decided to make peach pie. And just for fun I decided to compete against myself. I made one pie with fresh peaches and one pie with canned peaches. Now- I did not use the revoltingly sweet pre-prepared pie filling. I drained sliced peaches in light syrup.

To keep things fair I simply doubled everythign in the recipe and split it between the pies. It wasn't perfect- but good enough. An intersteding not is that the cost was almost identical for the two pies.

Both pies were good. The fresh peach pie was more excellent. It was less moist but the peaches had a lovely crisp texture. The canned peach pie lasted longer(in fact is still around), and was much more moist and mushy.

Amazingly enough- the fresh peaches, though not soaked in sugar water, were voted as making a sweeter pie.

The fresh peaches were also very easy to prepare - I left on the skin cause I wanted to, and I'm glad I did. It made the pie a little more colorful and helped create the better texture.

Fresh pie wins the day.

Another interesting note- I used whole wheat, unbleached white flour for the crust - it was easy to work with and resulted in a wholesome, crumbly crust.