Eat a perfect peach under the summer sun and you’ll experience the fruit at its messy, dripping, sugar-bright best. Rinse your chin and understand that no melon, apricot or blackberry can compete. But how often does this happen? For most of us, a great and truly perfect peach is a rare event. We can expect but one or two a season, for all our trying. Enter the pie. A peach pie can elevate good peaches to excellence and great ones to the sublime. Even a peach pie made with frozen fruit is a terrific thing. The addition of sugar helps; so, too, do a dash of lemon juice and a light sprinkle of nutmeg, which offers a slight bitterness to offset the sweet. Add a crown of vanilla ice cream for a perfect diner-style à la mode effect.

Old Fashioned Peach Pie (2 Crust)

Ingredients
Yield: 8 serving

1 (14.1 ounce) package pastry for a double-crust 9-inch pie
1 egg, beaten
5 cups sliced peeled peaches
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 cup white sugar
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter

Directions

Step 1
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (220 degrees C).

Step 2
Line the bottom and sides of a 9-inch pie plate with one pie crust. Lightly brush crust with egg to prevent dough from becoming soggy later. Set second crust aside.

Step 3
Place peaches in a large bowl, sprinkle with lemon juice, and mix gently. Mix together sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a separate bowl. Pour over peaches and mix until combined. Pour into pie crust and dot with butter.

Step 4
Cover filling with remaining pie crust. Flute the edges to seal or use a fork dipped in egg to press them down. Brush remaining egg on top, then cut several slits in the top crust to allow steam to escape.

Step 5
Bake pie in the preheated oven for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and bake until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through the vents, 30 to 35 more minutes. If the edges brown too fast, cover them with strips of aluminum foil about halfway through baking.

Step 6
Cool pie for 15 minutes before slicing.

Info and Image from NYT and All Recipes