Peach pie gelling

Anyone have an idea of how to get a peach pie to set up a bit more, mine tends to slough out after cutting into it. I was hoping to use either pectin, agar or tapioca to accomplish this. I would love to avoid animal based gelling agents

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Chris_Young_80640

I would recommend pectin. But for conventional pectin you need a lot of dissolved sugar (more than 20%) and a low enough pH to get it to gel. I would suggest low-methoxyl pectin, which gels at low sugar levels and high pHs. It requires calcium to gel, much like alginate. You can usually find a ready-to-gel version of LM pectin in the supermarket as a low-sugar pectin for jams and jellies (just make sure it doesn't have an artificial sweetener added).

grant

NovoShape! The real problem is people want their peaches to be in too large of pieces usually. Smaller cubes and pectin makes a very good peach pie. Another thing I find is that wet fruit pies go through a bell curve of texture when being cooked. They start out sort of dry/wet as you cook them, they break down and become soup. Many people look at the crust and decide that its done by the color. I have told people that they red the cover of the book and assume they have read the whole story. You need to look inside(measure), what you really care about is the interior. My best fruit pies are cooked at 400f for 45 minutes then maybe 250 for 2 more hours. The fruit becomes more dense and fudge'y, the other great side effects are that the less moisture there is the better the crust will be later and the more concentrated the fruit flavor becomes.

michaelnatkin

Re the LM Pectin, you can find Pomona Pectin at many places, including Whole Foods - I love the stuff because it is super easy to work with; if there isn't enough calcium present for it to gel, they provide you with a bit of calcium salt that you can dissolve in a tiny amount of water and add to your filling.

@Grant Lee Crilly - how do you feel about blind baking the crust and separately cooking out the filling most of the way, then just finishing them together for a shorter period?

crkoller

@Michael So say I'm using 1600g diced peaches, 15 g lemon juice, 115 g sugar, 115 g light brown sugar, 1 g salt and a hint of cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon zest how much of the Pomona pectin would I use?

@grant I could agree more about the pie bell life cycle that is exactly how described it to a coworker the other day because I have been waking up at 5.00 to bake certain pastries to bring in on Friday mornings because I can't bring myself to bring in something that is soggy I that has lost all on if crunch/ flakiness. That is interested about the long two hours at a low temperature I really want to try that now. Which type of pie have you found that it works best for? Oh and I made the biscuits for work today too...completely insane, the office was beside themselves...avoided mentioning how they were made

michaelnatkin

Random other thought, which I'll ask @Grant Lee Crilly about when I see him - I wonder how it would work to par-dehydrate the peaches to drive off a lot of the moisture and concentrate flavors, before making the actual filling. I've done this in a skillet before, but never in a dehydrator.

Re the LM pectin, Grant will get back to you with a suggested amount; it is kind of a tricky situation b/c it is primarily thickening the filling, not the peaches, but it is difficult to say how much liquid filling you end up with to thicken. I know I've used as little at 0.25% for still-frozen ice cream and as much as 2% for a set, sliceable chocolate, so my guess is that you'd want in the neighborhood of 0.5 to 1 % of the liquid weight. I'd think you'd want to start experimenting on the low end and find the smallest amount that keeps your pie together without turning it to jelly.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Sounds like a perfect application for the recipe forking!

crkoller

@brendan_lee that is the plan once I get the time to, can't wait to start experimenting. Updating the classics

crkoller

Made an apple pie because the peaches are still a little hard so maybe tomorrow. Baked at 400F for 40 minutes and another 2 hours at 250F per @Grant's instruction. I can already tell without cutting into it that it's set nicer and the crust is more crisp than it usually would be. I love learning new small changes that completely change something as easy as...well pie...

crkoller

Photo

crkoller

This morning, crust was still perfect and the filling was fudgy, rich, and intensly apple flavored.

crkoller

Peach pie seemed to hold a lot nicer with pectin addition.

grant

Glad to hear it @Chris.

michaelnatkin

@Chris Koller - so how much pectin did you end up using?

crkoller

@Michael_Natkin I went with a clean 1% and I plan on upping it and seeing what the results are and will post results when I get the chance

michaelnatkin

Just had occasion to do this in a crappy beach house kitchen without a scale but with good farmers market peaches. I did have LM pectin with me so I intrepidly eyeballed it, and used @grants hi-lo temp method. Came out very good, with that desirable fudgy texture. I roasted the peaches first by themselves while the crust was chilling, then let them go a long time at 250 in the crust to really condense.