Over the winter and spring we like to have "fresh" peach and apricot pies. We do this by making up the fillings and freezing them in pie pans until they set. Then bag them in gallon freezer zip-lock bags.
The first step is to get some apricots. In our case we found a deal for 20# for $20 from Justy's Produce, so we picked up two boxes on Sunday and they were mostly all ripe by Wednesday. There were plenty early ripeners available for snacking in the mean time. May I say that they are very nice fresh served with with chocolate pudding and an almond cookie. 
We used the recipe from the 1950s Betty Crocker cookbook. 7/8 cup sugar, 1/4 cup flour, 4 cups apricots, 1/2 tsp fine spices (or cinnamon).
Assemble the ingredients ...
Snap! Oops! I seem to have snapped my OXO Good Grips
in half. It was not even much more than 10 years old. Anyway, mix the stuff together.
Line a 9" (or 10", or 8") pie pan with plastic wrap.
The idea is we are going to make the filling and pour it into the pie pan.
Freeze it.
Then use the plastic wrap to be able to pull it back out once it is solid and put it into a zip-lock freezer bag for long term storage.
Well, "long term" until we can't take it any more and pull it out to make a pie, that is.
Pour the filling into the prepared pan.
Place in the freezer for several hours until frozen to the touch.
Gently pry out with a butter knife and place into a zip-lock bag and return to freezer.
When the time is right, pull out and remove the plastic wrap. Place in a pie pan with your favorite pie dough. I like to have a top crust with some decorative portions removed. One way or another, make sure there are some places for steam to escape. Bake at 350 until the internal temperature is around 200 degrees. (Internal temp is more reliable since the filling may be an unknown stage of defrosting. It will probably be around 50-60 minutes.
Gosh, these look fabulous! I can practically smell the peaches and my mouth is watering. :)
ReplyDeleteKind of funny making four pie fillings and no pie. But it will pay off later.
DeleteWhy do you make the filling instead of just freezing the fruit? It seems that you would have more choices of what to do with the frozen fruit if it wasn't already made into pie filling....unless of course you are only into pie.
ReplyDeleteWe also freeze some fruit, but mostly use it for smoothies, fruit salads, thick german pancakes and such.
DeleteThis makes making pie very convenient: Make a crust, plunk in the filling. Bake.
We have never had a problem with having too much pie!
The bigger problem is pacing ourselves to ensure that we have pie for Christmas Eve (a family tradition for Sharon that I heartily endorse) and Pi Day (a Jeff-tradition).
I guess the other point is that I almost never buy fruit that isn't local and in season. So for us this is our one shot at apricots for the year.
DeleteAlso (two other points) these seem easier to assemble than IQF (individually quick frozen) apricots and actually store better because there is less surface area for ice crystals to form on (I guess that is three other points).