This past weekend, Luke and I celebrated the Fourth of July in Philly. With Luke’s parents away on vacation we had the whole house to ourselves. Comfy bed, lil’ backyard with a BBQ, washer and dryer, big screen TV – it was heavenly. The best part of all: the kitchen and all of it’s wonderful appliances, namely, the Cuisinart food processor. I’m always afraid that making pie crust in our tiny BK apartment will be a complete disaster. And currently we don’t have the space or the shekels for a proper food processor. So all last week I had been looking forward to making a pie, homemade crust and all. And it was delicious. We enjoyed for dessert, breakfast, late night and afternoon snacks all weekend long.

This recipe is adapted from one of our favorites, Melissa Clark. The original recipe includes a very helpful video if you’re a relatively novice pie crust maker like myself.

Ingredients – Crust (yields 2 9-inch crusts):

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 1/2 sticks cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 6-8 TBS ice cold water

Ingredients – Filling:

• 1 lb ripe peaches (about 3 medium peaches), cut into 1 1/2 inch chunks
• 2-3 cups blackberries
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/2 TBS corn starch
• zest of 1 lemon
• 2 tsp lemon juice

Ingredients – Crumble:

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup oats
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp cardamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• pinch of salt
• 6-8 TBS unsalted butter, cubed

Directions – Crust:

1. In a food processor, combine flour and salt and briefly pulse. Add butter and pulse until mixture forms chickpea/lima bean sized pieces (you don’t want it to be too grainy). Add ice water, 1 TBS at a time, and continue to pulse until mixture is just moist enough to hold together. You’ll know you’ve added enough water when you take some dough, pinch it, and it holds together. Dump contents onto a big sheet of plastic wrap and form dough into a large ball. Wrap with plastic wrap and flatten into a disk. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
2. You’ll have enough pie crust for either a 9-x-13-inch baking dish or 2 9-inch round pie pans or an 8-x-8-inch baking dish and a 9-inch pie pan. For this recipe, we used half for an 8-x-8-inch baking dish to make a sort of slab pie and saved the other half. You can double the filling if you want to make a giant 9-x-13-inch slab pie. You’ll have lots of leftovers!
3. Using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out half of dough into a roughly 10-x-10-inch rectangle. Transfer to lightly greased 8-x-8-inch baking dish and press crust into bottom of the dish and up the edges so it’s flush with the top of the pan. Return crust to the fridge while you make the filling and crumble.

Directions – Filling:

1. In a medium sized bowl, toss together peaches, blackberries, sugar, corn starch, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Let sit for 20-30 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 425°F. Arrange one rack on the lowest position and the other in the center.

Directions – Crumble:

1. Whisk together flour, oats, sugar, cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg, and salt. Mix in butter with fingertips until the mixture is uniformly moist and comes together in large clumps.

Directions – Assemble and Bake:

1. Spoon filling into crust and create a mound. You want more filling in the middle, so aim to create a small, slopping hill. Top with crumble, which you’ll have to gently press into the filling to make sure it clumps together and is evenly distributed. Place on lowest rack and cook at 425°F for 15 minutes. Reduce temp to 375°F and move pie to center rack. Cook for 1 hour more, or until pie is golden brown and filling is bubbling. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely before slicing and serving.