Peach and vanilla cream pie

A lovely pie filled with vanilla cream and fresh peaches. To us, it was the perfect dive into August, the end the summer season, sharing it with a few friends over drinks and laughs. :)

What I wanted to achieve when I first imagined it was to make it a bit crunchy on the base, rich and creamy in the middle layer (like doooh, vanilla cream) but also retain a note of freshness and raw-ripe fruit flavor that most pies fail to have because of the baking. That's why I wanted to keep the fruit fresh, and the sweetness of peaches seemed like the ideal flavor for this. :)
All in all, I can't find a single thing I didn't like about this pie. Definitely repeatable. Enjoy :)

P.S: Submitting this to the Sweet Romania challenge, as a seasonal treat that captures the taste of summer :).

Last year: Lemon and artichoke spaghetti (vegan).
Two years ago: Baby making and no cooking :).





Ingredients (for a 26 cm pie dish):

For the crust:

• 250 g flour
• 150 g butter
• 4 tablespoons yogurt (75 g)
• pinch of salt
• 2-3 tablespoons sugar

For the cream:

• 500 ml milk
• 100 g sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 40 g starch
• 1 vanilla bean (and/or 1 tablespoon vanilla extract)
• 1-2 tablespoons butter

For decorating:

• 2 large peaches or nectarines

To make the crust, preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Tip the flour, sugar and the salt in a bowl. Cut the butter into cubes and add it to the flour. Also add the yogurt:

Mix everything with your hands until it comes together in a dough slightly wetter than the classic pate sablee.

Press it into the bottom and sides of the pie dish:

Put it into the fridge for at least 15 minutes. Take it out, line the inside with baking paper and fill with some weights (baking beans, dry beans or rice etc):

Put it into the preheated oven and bake blindly for 30 minutes. Remove the weights and paper and return it to the oven for another 15 minutes. While the shell is baking, make the cream.
Put the yolks and starch in a bowl:

In a medium pot, mix the milk, sugar and vanilla (if using a bean). Bring the milk to a simmer. Mix the yolks and starch really well:

Add a few tablespoons of the hot milk to the yolk cream, stirring continuously with a hand whisk. Keep whisking and incorporating milk until about half of the milk has been put into the cream. Pour the cream in the main milk pot and stir, over low heat, for about 5 minutes, until it thickens.

Allow it to cool slightly and remove the vanilla bean (if using), or add the vanilla extract (if using). Also add the butter and mix very well. The cream is done.
The baked pie shell should look like this:

Pour the vanilla cream into the shell:

Chop the peaches into cm-sized bits:

Add the peaches to the top of the pie. It's done. Now put it in the fridge to harden up for at least 4 hours.

When you're ready to serve it, gently remove it from the pie dish and put it onto a serving plate:

Slice and dig in! :)