You win some, you lose some with peach recipes

Published 9:06 am Saturday, July 15, 2017

prepared both of these recipes while I still had peaches from The Peach Truck; however, you can get locally grown peaches at our very own Farmers Market right now — check out the Beech Springs Farm booth as soon as you can.

I found both of today’s recipes on the Internet.  I found the Fresh Peach Lemonade recipe at gatherforbread.com and the Peach Pie Scone recipe at alattefood.com.

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You see, I had all these peaches and I wanted to do something different with them. I’ve got several peach cobbler recipes to try, but I wasn’t in the mood for cobbler.

Since I only needed a few peaches for both these recipes I opted to just peel them by hand.

Brad was on his annual fishing trip and I was in the mood to do something with the peaches I had in the refrigerator. I made the lemonade first since it needed to heat and then cool before it would be ready.

The recipe calls for three large peaches; I didn’t consider mine large so I used four. I placed the peaches, sugar and water in a pan and followed the directions heating the mixture, letting it simmer and then letting it cool.

While it cooled, I started making the scones. When the scones went into the oven, I finished making the lemonade. I poured the cooled mixture into my blender and let it go for a minute. I poured the thick mixture into my sieve that was sitting on top of a two-quart pitcher. The peach mixture was so thick it took forever to get it through the sieve. I ended up using a spoon to force everything through and into the pitcher. When I finally had all of the peach juice in the pitcher, I added the juice from seven lemons. The recipe called for six to eight, so I settled in the middle.

After adding the lemon juice, I poured in enough water to make almost two quarts.

Now, getting back to the Peach Pie Scones. While the peach mixture was cooling, I peeled the two peaches and set them aside. I combined the dry ingredients and cubed up the cold butter. To incorporate the butter and dry ingredients, I first tried using a fork — like I do when I make pie crust. This, however, was getting me nowhere, so I decided to try an antique pastry blender I have in the kitchen for decoration.

For some reason, I’ve never had good luck using a pastry blender, but I thought it might work on this dough. I washed the utensil and then gave it a try. It worked like a charm. I was so impressed.

After combining the wet ingredients, I slowly poured them into the flour/butter mixture and stirred everything. I knew I didn’t want to mix this too much or the end result would be tough scones, so I gently stirred in the peaches just until they were incorporated throughout the dough.

I put some flour on the counter and scraped the dough out of the bowl. I put a little bit of flour on top of the dough, so it wouldn’t stick to my hands, and shaped the dough into a 1/2-inch thick disc. I cut the dough into eight pie-shaped pieces.

I lined a large cookie sheet with parchment paper and placed each scone on the pan. I brushed a little bit of whipping cream on top of each scone and popped them into the oven. I checked the scones after 16 minutes and thought they could cook a bit longer. After about five more minutes, I took them out of the oven.

I let them cool a bit and then made the glaze — it’s easy to put together. I only used two tablespoons of whipping cream in mine. Then I poured the glaze over each scone.

By this time, I was chomping at the bit wanting to try both the lemonade and a scone. After just one bite of the scone, I was hooked. I’ve had scones before and most of them have been too dry, but this one, oh, it was so light and moist. I had to cover them up so I wouldn’t eat another one. The only thing I would do differently the next time is double a number of peaches.

After eating a couple of bites of scone, I put some ice in a glass and poured in some peach lemonade. I took a drink and thought it was OK, but not what I expected and not something I’d go to the trouble to make again. It only had a slight peach taste and, to look at it, you would have thought it was orange juice. I expected it to be translucent and it wasn’t.

I shared the lemonade and scones with my neighbors Chris, Rachel and Maggie. They loved both, though Rachel thought the lemonade was a bit tart -— she likes tart though. I also shared the scones with Bryson (my coworker, Heather’s, son) and Barbara, a sweet lady who comes in our office. Barbara’s description was “delicious.” Bryson’s big blue eyes got even bigger and he said it was good then he asked for the recipe. I never imagined a five-year-old would ask for a recipe. I’ll go with all of my taste testers on these two recipes and say I nailed them.

I’ll be holding on to the Peach Pie Scone recipe, but I’m not sure about the Peach Lemonade.

I made one other recipe with my Peach Truck peaches and I’ll be sharing that one soon.