Every summer throughout my high school and college years, my family celebrated peach season the same way. Although Mom rarely baked anything from scratch, she always pulled out the faded, yellowing index card with Grandma’s neat script outlining how to make her famous peach pie.
As soon as we saw the first really big, beautiful peaches arrive at the grocery store, we bought a huge bag and brought them home. After a few days of ripening, we pulled out mixing bowls and the glass pie plate, carefully following Grandma’s Instructions.
Her recipe began with an extremely buttery shortbread crust, one where you simply patted it across the bottom and up the sides of the pie plate, instead of chilling and rolling it out like traditional pie crust dough. With her shortbread crust, the pie took less time to prepare and the bottom crust never turned soggy!
Next, we turned to the filling. We peeled all of the peaches, cut them into slices, and tossed them in a big bowl along with cinnamon, almond extract (Grandma’s secret ingredient!), and flour to thicken the juices they released while baking.
With the peaches spread across the shortbread crust, we followed Grandma’s instructions for an easy streusel topping. She simply reserved some of the pie crust mixture, added extra sugar, and sprinkled those large buttery bits across the fruit filling.
Although relatively straightforward and simple to make, the hardest part of that peach pie recipe was always the same…
Waiting for it to cool! After it finished baking, we had to let the pie cool all the way to room temperature and then rest for another couple of hours to let the peach juices thicken so they wouldn’t squirt out all over the place when we cut slices for ourselves.
But as tortuous as that felt, Grandma’s peach pie was always worth the wait… And it rarely lasted more than 24 hours!
With summer peach season right around the corner, Grandma’s famous pie has been on my mind lately. Since I still haven’t perfected a healthier version (my jaw always drops at how much butter goes into her crust!), I decided to make the next best thing…
These Healthy Peach Crumble Bars! They have a lovely soft sugar cookie crust, sweet juicy peaches in the filling, and a spiced streusel topping—just like Grandma’s pie!
However, unlike her recipe, these cookie bars contain no dairy, refined flour or sugar (and no eggs too!), and they’re just 79 calories!
Continue reading & see the rest! ›› Healthy Peach Crumble Bars
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