Homemade Sugar Free Peach Pie

Posted on August 12, 2016 by Carmen

Peaches are one of the wonderful fruits that are fresh and abundant in the summer months. Stock full of vitamins and minerals (like Vitamin E, K, A and lots of B’s), there’s nothing like biting into a fresh juicy peach on a summer’s day.

We often get our peaches fresh from the Okanagan fruit stands while out visiting Gran and Grandpa in BC, ok that is the only place we get our peaches. Once I’ve bitten into a fresh ripe Okanagan peach I just can’t bring myself to buy them in the store. They simply aren’t as good, not as juicy and not as flavorful. So once we’ve eaten them all I don’t get any more (unless I can go back to BC and get some).

Besides eating them fresh (my son sometimes eating 4-6 at a time!), I usually make peach jam, (which I love!), and make the odd crumble. It wasn’t until my neighbor went on one time about how much he loved peach pie that I even considered the possibility. I love making pies in the summer with all the fresh fruit, cherry pie being my favorite, but I had never made peach. So I set out to experiment.

When I originally found and made this peach pie recipe it was before we had eliminated refined sugars from our diet. So when I pulled up the recipe this summer (as my mother was asking that I share it with her) I had to make a few adjustments. I hadn’t realized that it still had white sugar in it.

I thought about using agave nectar, which I knew would work and is what I did originally when I transformed my cherry pie recipe, but I have heard a number of reports lately that agave is no better than refined white sugar. I had recently tried using honey in a pound cake recipe that turned out successfully so I decided to give honey a go for the peach pie.

As luck would have it, it turned out great, and everybody ate it up. With my oldest son even commenting that my pies are way better than Gran’s, as he inhaled his pie. My tip though is to make sure that you mix the honey in very well with the flour mixture so you don’t get any clumps of flour. The other option is to do the flour mixture without the honey, sprinkle it over the peaches, and then pour the honey over the peaches. It does produce a lot of juice regardless so I recommend a deep pie dish for sure.

Sugar Free Peach Pie

2 – 9″ pie crusts (store bought or homemade*)

1 egg beaten

5c. sliced peaches, peeled and sliced

2 tbsp. lemon juice

½ c. flour

1 c. honey

½ tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. salt

2 tbsp. butter

Brush some of the beaten egg on crust to keep from getting soggy. Place peaches in a bowl and sprinkle with some lemon juice, mix gently. In a separate bowl, mix flour, honey, spices and pour over peaches, mix gently. Pour into pie crust, dot with butter. Put on top crust fold edges under. Flute or seal by pressing with a fork dipped in egg. Brush egg over the top crust.

Bake at 450 F for 10 minutes, then reduce heat and bake for 30-35 minutes until crust is brown.

Enjoy! (And don’t forget the ice cream! We enjoy a delectable creamy non dairy vanilla ice cream by Rice Dream. It’s fantastic.)

* I make my own pie crust which turns out flaky and delicious every time simply by using Tenderflake and following their recipe on the box.

What’s your favorite kind of pie in the summer? Share in the comments below.

Sweet Butter Tarts

Posted on October 27, 2015 by Carmen

I received a little inspiration the other day from my sister. She was making pies and butter tarts asking for advice and how to’s as it had been a while since she had made them. Of course I helped her and gave her lots of tips.

She sent me photos of her and the girls (my nieces) creations and it made me a little jealous. I love butter tarts, they are definitely one of my favorites and I hadn’t had one in years! They are so sweet and delectable, nice flaky pastry and yummy sugary sweetness as it melts in your mouth.

Why though hadn’t I made these in so long? I mean pastry challenges aside (I never enjoyed rolling them out and cutting small circles, found it finicky), there was really no reason why I could not make these things. Yes we have chosen to eliminate dairy and sugar from our diets but why had I not adjusted this recipe? I hadn’t even looked at the recipe to see if it could be!

With mouth watering I decided to least attempt it. I mean what was the worst that could happen, I’d end up with a batch that didn’t taste so good and might have to put in the garbage? But if it meant I might be successful and enjoy butter tarts once again 🙂

So I pulled out the recipe and took a peek. I balked at myself for having left this for so long. This transformation was going to be super easy! It was a simple substitution of Earth Balance, coconut sugar and coconut milk and voila! it was done.

I waited in anticipation as they baked, hoping that I was right and they would turn out. Once they were out I did my best to let them cool at least a little, before I tasted one. Omg! it was absolutely delicious and honestly I could not tell the difference between this one and the original recipe. Perfect!

I then shared the butter tarts with the kids who loved them and gobbled them up, quickly asking for more. Of course I love these so much I could easily gobble two or three at once, but I resisted, knowing perhaps I could have one for breakfast tomorrow…

And now I am going to share them with you. This is a dairy free sugar free butter tart recipe that you can enjoy without the guilt and really will not notice the difference or compromise on taste.

Butter Tarts

1/3 c. Earth Balance Vegan Spread, melted

1 c. coconut sugar

2 tbsp. coconut milk (full fat canned coconut milk is best)

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 c. currants

Make pastry as per directions. (I use Tenderflake and follow their recipe on the back) Roll out pastry to desired thickness (usually between 1/4 to 1/8 inch depending on preference) and cut into 4″ circles. Place pastry circles in prepared muffin tin. (*If tin is not non stick I would highly recommend greasing each opening lightly with Earth Balance. There is nothing more annoying then being unable to get your tart out of the pan without it breaking!)

Combine all filling ingredients in a medium bowl. Fill each pastry circle about 2/3 full. Do not over fill as filling bubbles up when baking and can overflow. Bake at 450F for 8 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 350F and bake until pastry is lightly browned, no longer than 5 more minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.

*Tip – if you’re filling did overflow while baking it is a good idea to gently run a knife around the edge of the tart before it completely cools. This prevents the filling from hardening and sticking, making it difficult to get the tarts out of the pan once completely cooled.

Makes 12 medium sized tarts

Enjoy! (Now I’m going to make some more… writing this post has definitely started my mouth watering)

Homemade (Sugar Free) Apple Pie

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Carmen

It was a busy weekend at our house with the Fall activities beginning, soccer evaluations, Ju Jitsu and Leaders in Training. Rallying the kids, getting them ready and myself ready was quite the challenge, but we managed to get it all right. Well almost all. Somehow we mixed up the times for Matthew’s Ju Jitsu grading and unfortunately he missed it. He was pretty upset and now can’t grade until December, but his Dad ended up taking him for a motorcycle ride to ease his disappointment and they had a glorious time! It was a gorgeous warm, fall afternoon, with bright sunny blue skies.

In the midst of all this activity, I still had a huge basket of apples in my kitchen, and though we were diligently eating them, there were still quite a few. So Saturday afternoon while Matthew was out I decided to make apple pie. I had yet to try a sugar free version of this pie but was fairly confident after the success I had with the cherry pie in the summer (see earlier post for Sugar Free Cherry Pie recipe).

I had pulled my pie crust from the freezer earlier that morning. (I make a it from scratch, simply using the recipe on the Tenderflake® box, making a whole batch at once which is six pie crusts, and freeze it for later). This makes it a lot easier and quicker to make a pie when the crust is ready. Plus I make a killer pie crust, even my sister, who loves to cook and bake, is envious of my crust as she cannot make one as light and flaky as mine 🙂 I simply roll it out, prepare the filling with the pie in the oven within 15-20 minutes.

I used my apple peeler corer slicer once again to prepare my apples, also a great time saving device as you can peel, core and slice an apple in less than a minute. Mixed up the filling, estimating the amount of honey to substitute for the sugar, poured it over, put the crust on top and placed it into oven.

When substituting honey for sugar you reduce the amount of honey by 1/2 to 2/3 of the amount of sugar. Honey can be is 2-3 times sweeter than sugar so you don’t need to use as much. The amount of honey you will use will depend on the kind of honey you’re using (as some flavors are sweeter than others), and how sweet you like things. I found that using 1/2 cup of honey for the pie worked really well. Not too sweet that it overtook the flavour of the apples, but nice enough to sweeten it up a bit.

The pie turned out beautifully. Matthew jumped for joy when he came in from his ride and saw it on the counter. The twins, who were dubious at first, wanted apple crumble, not understanding or knowing what apple pie was, as they had never had it before.

Chloe especially insisted that she have crumble, but once she tasted her pie, she was sold and had 2 pieces! In fact, everyone loved it, ooed and awed and almost polished off the the whole pie! We had one piece leftover, which Matthew was lucky enough to take in his lunch to school.

I managed to put a good dent in my apples but I still need to make a few more things to use them up. I’ll make applesauce for the kids, but I may have to make another crumble or a pie…

Apple Pie

2 – 9 inch pie crusts (store bought or make your own)

5 c. apples (6-8 medium apples)

1/2 c. honey

2 tbsp. flour

Cinnamon

Roll bottom pastry and fit into a 9 inch pie plate. Let excess drape over the edge of plate.

Peel, core and slice apples and put into pie plate, arranging evenly. Sprinkle apples with cinnamon, to taste.

Mix honey and flour together. Pour evenly over apples. Roll out top pastry, dampen edges with water and place top pastry covering apples. Press and crimp edges together, then cut off excess pastry. Cut several slits in the top to allow steam to escape.

Bake in 350 F oven until apples are tender, about 45 minutes. Serves 6-8.

Enjoy!

Summer Treats – Sugar Free Cherry Pie

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Carmen

One of the things I love about summer is all the fresh fruit that is available. Cherries, peaches, strawberries, blueberries, etc. It’s abundantly available, and it’s fresh, sweet and luscious, a taste sensation when you put it in your mouth.

I feel lucky that my parents live in the Okanagan where fresh fruit is rapidly abundant. Fruit stands and u-picks line the sides of the roads where it is not a matter if there is fruit but where you would like to get it from.

I always tend to get a little over zealous and buy lots of fruit to bring home. I make jam, freeze, eat it straight or make various desserts like crumbles and pies.

In fact last weekend when I was in the Okanagan I bought 20 lbs of cherries for $20. It was a steal of a deal! The only thing is when you buy that much fresh fruit you have to do something with it fairly quickly or your ‘steal of a deal’ ends up going rotten and moldy very quickly.

So there I was Tuesday night for 3 hours pitting and jamming cherries, trying to give some away to friends, and getting creative with what I was going to do with this fruit.

(I would highly recommend using a cherry pitter as this makes it much easier to pit cherries. It is also something the kids can do and help with – my son loves using the cherry pitter and I can easily enlist his help).

By the time I was done I was covered in cherry juice (and so was my kitchen), with a mound of cherry pits and stems in the sink and a huge mess to clean up. I never wanted to see another cherry again…

The benefit of all this was cherry pie. Cherry pie is one of my favorite pies, other than pumpkin and coconut cream, so when I was getting to the end of the cherries and still had a lot left I decided to treat myself.

As you may know there is lots of sugar in pie, but as sugar and dairy free household, I have become adept enough to make the appropriate substitutions and still have a delicious experience (where it tastes just as good as one with sugar, if not better). My mouth was already watering at the thought of this pie, with ice cream on top.

I used Martha Stewart’s Sweet Cherry Pie recipe that I found on the internet and adapted it accordingly using honey instead of sugar. It turned out beautifully and everyone had 2 pieces! With ice cream of course!

Vanilla Rice Dream

As for the ice cream, I have recently discovered Rice Dream, a lactose and gluten free ice cream available in stores. It is also sugar free, as it is sweetened with brown rice syrup and agave nectar. It is quite good, in fact it is so good I had way more ice cream than I actually did pie!

I make my own crust (and have been praised for how good it is) simply by following the recipe on the Tenderflake® box, which I use in my crust. It creates a beautiful light and flaky crust.

This pie recipe used a lattice top crust, which I don’t usually do but decided to try it out, and though I found it did look very pretty, I prefer a full crust on the top. A good crust is something we really enjoy at our house, so the more of it the better! Plus it’s really hard to cut once it’s baked (as in getting it out in a decent piece)!

Cherry Pie

4 cups cherries
1/4 cup honey
2 -3 tablespoons arrowroot powder or cornstarch
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
All-purpose flour, for rolling
1 large egg yolk, beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash
2-9 inch pie crusts (make your own or store bought)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On a floured surface, roll out pie crust one to a 14-inch round. Fold dough in half and gently place in middle of a 9 inch pie plate. Once centered unfold dough so that it fits evenly in the plate (do not stretch dough). Using pering knife trim dough to a 1-inch overhand all around.
In a large bowl, combine cherries, honey, arrowroot powder, and lemon juice; toss until cherries are well coated. Pour into prepared bottom crust.
Roll out second crust to a 14-inch round. If creating lattice, cut into eight 1 1/2-inch-wide strips; discard the shortest two. Weave strips over filling to form a lattice. Using pering knife, trim strips so they hang over rim by 1 inch. Tuck strips under rim of bottom crust; press to seal. Crimp with a fork all around the edge. If choosing not to create lattice, simply fold crust in half and place over pie. Trim, press to seal and crimp as described.
Using a pastry brush, lightly brush lattice/ crust with egg wash.
Place pie on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until filling is bubbling rapidly all over, 60 to 70 minutes (tent with aluminum foil when crust starts to brown, about 40 minutes). Though original recipe calls for above baking time I found that pie was done in about 50-55 minutes. Please use times as approximate and gauge it according to your oven.
Transfer pie to a wire rack, and let cool to room temperature, at least 3 hours.