Old-Fashioned Peach Cream Pie: A Fresh and Decadent Bite of Summer

Name: Old-Fashioned Peach Cream Pie
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Ingredients: 1 pie crust; 2-3 cups peeled and sliced fresh peaches; 3/4-1 cup sugar; 4 Tbsp. flour (heaping); 1 cup cream

July 5, 2021 by Susan 44 Comments

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This simple, classic peach pie recipe is made rich with cream. It’s bursting with summer flavor and is easy to make using just a handful of ingredients.

Peaches kind of scream summer, don’t they?

And there’s something about peach pie that is nostalgic just all by itself. Simple flavors and ingredients, dripping with sweet sentimentality.

But this particular peach pie is particularly nostalgic because it’s my Grandma’s recipe. My childhood summers were spent at my grandparents’ lake cabin and there was always something cooking in the kitchen. Always.

Grandma rolled and dried homemade noodles, fried raised doughnuts, made every variety of cookie from simple sugar cookies to her spicy ginger snaps, baked caramel rolls and custards, and made dumpling soup from her garden vegetables.

Grandma’s Peach Cream Pie Recipe

This simple recipe has just 5 ingredients, if you count the crust as a single ingredient (which I do since I purchase mine…sorry Grandma).

Crust
Peaches
Sugar
Cream
Flour

I decided a lot of years ago that making homemade pie crusts was not worth the labor investment for me. If you love to make them… go for it!

Speaking of labor investments, the largest one in this recipe is peeling the peaches. You definitely don’t want peach skins in your pie. (You know, I never got good at peeling things with a knife. I made these pies with my lovely mom last weekend and she did the peeling for me….thanks mom!)

Peach Pie Notes

My sweet mama also helped me out with some tips for making Grandma’s pies.

The first thing she called me on was not filling the pie shells too full. (The cup of peaches you see sitting next to the pies are peaches that she made me take out) 🙂

Next, if your peaches are particularly sweet…maybe back off on the sugar a bit. This is a sweet pie already, and if your peaches are especially ripe and amazingly sweet, it might be too sweet. Our peaches, on the other hand, were on the tart side, so we upped the sugar a bit.

The original recipe is somewhat vague – as older recipes tend to be – and tells you to add “about a cup of sugar, enough to sweeten.” We are so used to exact measurements, but the truth (that experienced cooks know) is that you need to know your ingredients, get a feel for them. And while a cup of sugar might be perfect most of the time, sometimes it may not be enough–because peaches are not always identically sweet–and sometimes it may be too much.

I think that’s a huge miss when we just cook from recipes and not with other, more experienced cooks…getting a feel for our ingredients. So the lesson today is: take the time to cook with the old folks in your lives! (And old folks…cook with the kiddos!)

Anecdotal aside ==> I remember trying to nail down my Grandma’s dumpling soup recipe with her years ago and I asked how much milk to add to the flour mixture and she just kept saying, “Until it’s dumpling consistency.” 😉

Also, if your peaches are particularly juicy…maybe back off on the cream a bit. About half the time my mom makes this pie she serves it with the apology, “I’m sorry, it got so runny.”

As my eyes roll back in my head taking the first bit I assure her that, runny or not, the pie is just fine in my book.

Really, be prepared for a kind of sloppy pie regardless. If you’re looking for a pretty slice, this may not be the pie for you. It’s sweet and creamy and delish…but may not win any beauty contests.

Finally, because of the cream, be sure to chill your pie after it cools completely. You’ll definitely want to stash this pie in the fridge.

A bite of summer

I don’t spend nearly as much time at the cabin as I did as a child, but it remains, perhaps, my favorite place on earth. A place that soothes my soul and brings peace. A place for memories.

Besides the memory of making these pies with my mom while listening to Johnny Cash and Elvis, I think my favorite thing was being there with our boys and their wives, along with several nieces and nephews.

This mama’s heart took many mental snapshots to hold on to.

The pie…not holding on to. In fact, I think I’ll go snag the last leftover piece out of my fridge right now!

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What are your favorite tastes of summer memories?