Rum-Roasted Peach-Mango Pie
Sweet peaches and mangoes roasted in deep, spiced rum, brown sugar and fresh ginger. A homemade, vegan and gluten-free crust. An adorable heart cut into the center to show the luscious caramel inside.
Sounds like a lot; Promise it's not.
To explain how I made this pie, I broke it into the three elements - roasting the fruit, making the crust, and assembling the pie.
Rum-Roasted Peaches and Mangoes
3 mangoes
8 little peaches OR 5 big-ass ones
1 cup brown sugar
*1 cup spiced rum
*1 1-inch piece fresh ginger, skin trimmed
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup more rum, separated
2 tablespoons more brown sugar, separated
Process
Slice the peaches around pit, keep the skins.
Slice the mangoes around the pit and trim the skin off. Slice the mangoes in similar sizes to the peaches.
Lay the mangoes and peaches flat on a baking sheet (*or multiple sheets, if you need), with some room between each piece.
*Grate the ginger over the fruit.
Distribute the brown sugar evenly over the fruit.
Drizzle the rum evenly over the fruit.
*Shake the tray/s a few times for good measure.
Roast at 450 degrees F for 20ish minutes (depending on how soft your fruit already is).
Remove the tray/s from the oven when the fruit has softened and the brown sugar has caramelized.
Cool the fruit completely on the tray/s.
Notes
Spiced rum - Kraken rum is one of the best rums I’ve ever had - it’s dark, deep, sweet and spiced-but-not-spicy. As long as it’s dark, go with your favorite rum, but I highly recommend this one.
Fresh ginger - This is one of those recipes where using fresh makes a difference. Fresh ginger has a crisp, sharp flavor, and it’s just so friggin’ fresh. But if you’d rather not, dried ginger would get the job done - 1 tablespoon.
Grating ginger - I used a microplane because it’s easier to handle. The ginger will build up on on the microplane as you grate it, so smack it gently over the baking sheet to disperse it onto the fruit. If you only have a regular grater, no worries - use the fine side and grate close to the bottom of the grater so that the liquid can easily fall over the fruit.
Multiple trays - You want to make sure that the fruit has some room on the tray, otherwise they won’t roast properly.
Shaking the tray - To ensure that the rum gets all around the fruit and will roast into it nicely.
*Vegan + Gluten-free Pie Crust
*4 ounces ice-cold water
*8 ounces vegan butter, cut into small cubes
12 ounces gluten-free flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 hefty tablespoon white sugar
Process
Place the flour, salt and sugar in a large mixing bowl and whisk together.
Add the butter cubes and toss into the flour to individually coat them.
Place the bowl into the freezer for a few minutes to firm the butter.
*Transfer the mix into a food processor and pulse until the butter breaks down into the flour.
Add the ice water to the mix 1 tablespoon at a time. Keep adding and pulsing until the dough starts sticking together.
Add enough water for the dough to form 2-3 big pieces. Stop the food processor and press the pieces together with your hands.
Cut a large sheet of wax paper and lightly flour it. Transfer the mound of dough onto the paper.
Break the dough into two even pieces. Form the dough into wide discs, roughly 1/2-inch thick.
Use a rolling pin to roll out one of the discs for the bottom crust. Make as close to a large circle as you can, as long as it’s big enough to cover the bottom and sides of your pie pan.
Transfer the crust as carefully as you can into the pie dish. If it tears, don’t worry! Just gently smush it back together with your hands to seal.
Use your fingers to gently press the crust into the pan. If you feel any air bubbles underneath the crust, poke it with a knife or a fork to release it. Seal the cut with your fingers.
Use a fork to gently press the crust into the pan a little more.
Roll out the top crust and cut a cute shape into it. Keep it to the side to use after you’ve made the pie filling.
Pie Crust Notes
The recipe itself - I really can’t take credit for this recipe. I googled “gluten-free pie crust Miyoko’s butter” and found this one. But I did modify the recipe and the directions a bit by adding the white sugar and not following every single step (you know I like to keep it simple). The directions listed here are what I did to make this crust.
Ice cold water - The water should be really cold, so throw a few ice cubes into the water bowl to make sure it stays cold.
Vegan butter - For this crust, I used the fancy (and usually expensive!) Miyoko’s cultured butter. I haven’t been able to find Earth Balance baking sticks anywhere, but I needed pie, so I bought the fancy butter. I don’t typically like Miyoko’s for baking because things come out crumblier and saltier, but the fruity caramel in this pie glues the crust crumbles together, and the white sugar curbs the saltiness well.
Food processor - You can always do it the old-school way by breaking the butter down into the flour with your hands or using a tool to “cut” the butter into the flour. But, I didn’t want to deal with it, so I used my trusty food processor.
Butter breaking down - The original directions say “until you see pea-sized chunks of butter”. I saw no pea-sized chunks of butter. Mine broke down quite evenly into the flour. I just pulsed until I could see the mix starting to stick together.
One big dough piece - The original directions said to pulse in the food processor until the dough forms one large piece. I was afraid of overworking the dough (as I have a tendency to do), so I stopped my dough when I saw a few large chunks coming together, and then pushed them together with my hands before removing it from the food processor.
Pie Assembly/Baking
*Scrape everything from the baking sheets into a large mixing bowl.
Add the extra rum and brown sugar and stir gently.
*Add the cornstarch and stir gently to mix in.
Pour the roasted fruit mixture into the bottom crust.
*Transfer the top crust onto the pie dish and gently press it into the bottom crust.
*Bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes.
Pie Assembly/Baking Notes
Scraping the baking sheets - I used a spatula to scrape as much as of the caramelized sugar and rum as I could get from the baking sheets. The delicious, sticky stuff left on the sheets makes the base for the caramel inside the pie.
Adding cornstarch - To help the gooey good stuff inside the pie thicken.
Transferring the top crust - Mine tore in a few places as I transferred it - womp womp. My pie still looks amazing, in that rustic-homestyle-chic (“ooh, ahh”) type of way. I also had a few crust scraps leftover, so I gently patted them onto the top crust, because, who doesn’t want more delicious, flaky crust to sop up that fruity rum caramel?
Baking time - If your fruit was already a little overripe before you roasted it, cut some of the baking time here so that the filling doesn’t cook to mush. Start with 45 minutes. You want the pie to bake long enough for the caramel inside to bubble.
That may have felt like a lot. But with all the above being said, this rich pie with its deep, complex flavors is as simple as roasting fruit, making a pie crust, filling said pie crust, baking the pie and inhaling it.