When I saw the photos on Sassy Radish (some time ago), I knew it wouldn’t be long before I made it myself, though in actual fact I didn’t get around to it for about six weeks. I was waiting for the Ontario peaches to show up, and it feels like that took a while. (And now, I feel like I’m oversupplied; can’t complain about luscious, brightly flavoured, amaretto-kissed peach butter though!)

My standard peach pie usually involves sliced peaches topped with a sour cream-based custard, and it’s pretty damn good. However, the caramel won me over in a big way. I’ve done a similar thing with apple pie: a co-worker once told me that he was making a cabernet-infused caramel apple pie, and I’ve been kicking myself for the past three years for not extracting a recipe. My hack was tasty, but a bit more liquid than I prefer. This peach version worked immensely better.

I used Deb’s excellent all-butter pastry crust recipe for this; although I’ve been making my pie dough without a recipe for years, I do like this one a lot.

Sassy Radish’s Honey Bourbon Caramel Peach Pie

You’ll need a batch of your preferred pie pastry, of course, enough for a 9″ double-crust pie.

For the filling:

3 lbs ripe peaches, sliced (I followed Sassy Radish’s example and didn’t bother with peeling the peaches; no harm done. I refuse to peel peaches.)
2 Tbsp corn starch
1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

For the caramel:

1/4 cup liquid honey (recipes always say mild honey, but I generally buy and use Credit Valley Gold liquid buckwheat honey, and it is delicious. What’s with this mild honey thing?)
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp bourbon
2 Tbsp water
3 Tbsp unsalted butter

1 Tbsp whole milk or cream (I never have whole milk on hand, but cream is fine)
1 Tbsp sugar (if you can find it, try Turbinado sanding sugar)

Pre-heat the oven to 425F, and make sure that you have a baking-sheet (lined with foil, if you’re really on top of things) to catch the drips (this pie will drip). If you don’t have a baking stone, preheat the baking-sheet along with the oven.

Start by tossing all of the filling ingredients together in a large bowl. I find this part is a bit tricky, because you don’t want to squish all the lovely slices of peach but I tend to have a bit of a heavy hand for things like this; you just want to make sure that the corn starch, flour, salt, and lemon juice evenly coat the peaches. I think you could experiment with the cinnamon – perhaps cloves would also be nice? (I’m a big fan of cloves.)

To make the caramel, bring the 1/2 cup sugar, honey, bourbon, and water to a boil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat; wash down any sugar that sticks to the sides with a spatula or water-dipped brush. Let the caramel boil, swirling the pot occasionally, until dark amber, about 5 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the butter, swirling until it has melted. Pour the caramel over the peaches and toss to ensure they are evenly coated.

Split your pastry into two parts, and roll it into a roughly 13″ round. Fit it into a 9″ pie plate and trim the edges so that there is about a half inch of overhang. Chill the lower crust while you roll out the upper. If you are going to have a solid top crust, roll it into a roughly 11″ round. Personally, I got fancy, so I cut it into strips to make a lattice-top.

Mound the peach filling on top of the lower pastry crust, and top with the upper crust. Press the edges together and crimp them. Brush with a little milk or cream and sprinkle with a tablespoon or so of sugar or sanding sugar. If you are going with the solid top, make sure you cut several steam vents into it.

Bake the pie on the hot baking sheet for about 20 minutes, then lower the heat to 375F and bake for another 40 – 50 minutes or until the crust is golden-brown and the filling is bubbling. (Ovens differ, so be careful with the times; mine was actually done in about 35 minutes.)

Let the pie cool for several hours before you dig in. If you can.

But I do, now! (Or as close as I can get – the tomatoes and onions were local, though I can’t speak for the salt, sugar, spices, and cider vinegar.) So far this year, I’ve made strawberry jam, peach butter with amaretto, beer mustard lemon-sage wine mustard, peach barbeque sauce, and the afore-mentioned ketchup, in addition to two kinds of pickles. I’m still planning to try some kind of relish (to have the complete suite of burger condiments), roasted tomato-chipotle salsa, and pears in port, as well as my usual projects: apple butter, mango chutney, and habanero jelly.

But the ketchup is the canning project I’m really pleased with, because it’s just about the biggest canning project I’ve tried. I’ve got a few quibbles about the recipe I used (from the Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving, which has generally served me pretty well): though the instructions said I could put 24 lbs of tomatoes in a large saucepan, along with 3 cups of chopped onion and 3 cups of cider vinegar, I think something got lost in translation from the test kitchen. I’m lucky I have two huge stock pots, because without both of them I would have had some difficulty: both of them were filled to the brim with the tomatoes. (And oh, do I ever wish that my stove had two full-size burners instead of only one…) Perhaps because of the size of the pots, although the recipe indicated it would take about 45 minutes for the ketchup to cook down by half its volume once all of the ingredients were added, it took more like 4 hours.

Don’t let that stop you from making this, though – just be prepared! It really is delicious, and it almost makes that grilled cheese sandwich with ketchup feel virtuous. And it definitely made 7 500 mL jars with no problem; that’s definitely a year’s supply of ketchup for us even after I give some of it away.

Tomato Ketchup:

3 Tbsp celery seeds

4 tsp whole cloves

2 cinnamon sticks, broken into pieces

1 1/2 tsp whole allspice (It turned out that I was out of allspice in any format, so I used pickling spice – no harm seems to have been done, although next year I’ll make sure that I’ve got it on hand.)

3 cups cider vinegar

24 lbs tomatoes, cored and quartered

3 cups chopped onions

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1/4 cup pickling or canning salt

Tie the spices into a square of cheesecloth to make a spice bag.

In a saucepan, combine the vinegar and spice bag; bring to a boil over high heat, then remove the pot from the heat and let it stand, covered, for 25 minutes (I let mine stand a little longer, until I was finished chopping tomatoes). Discard the spice bag.

Meanwhile, in a very large saucepan (or more likely, 2 big stockpots), combine the tomatoes, onions, and cayenne. Bring to a boil over high heat; stir frequently. Reduce the heat and boil it gently for about 20 minutes, then add the vinegar. (If you have to use two pots, split it between the two.) Continue to boil gently until the tomatoes and onions are soft and the liquid is beginning to thicken, about 30 minutes.

In batches, use a sieve over a stainless steel/glass bowl or a food mill to press out the liquid from the mixture. Discard the solids. (I was a bit lax about this, because one thing I love about homemade ketchup is a bit of chunkiness. Plus, squishing out the liquid was a real pain.)

Return the liquid to the saucepan, and add the sugar and salt; bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring frequently, until the volume is reduced by half and the mixture is close to the consistency of commercial ketchup (keeping in mind that it’s going to be a bit thinner). In theory this is supposed to take about 45 minutes, but I found it took much longer; however, I was able to do other things and just head into the kitchen periodically to check on the ketchup.

During this time, sterilize your jars in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes, and heat the lids gently. The jars and lids need to be kept warm, so don’t start this process until about 30 minutes before the ketchup is ready. When it is ready, dry the jars.

Ladle the hot ketchup into jars, leaving about 1 cm of headspace; tap to remove air bubbles and wipe the rim of the jars. Add the lids and screw the bands on tightly. Place the jars in the canning pot, ensuring they are completely immersed in the water bath. Bring the water to a boil and process for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat, remove canner lid, and wait 5 minutes before removing the jars. Let cool, then store.