Beehive Peach with Bourbon Sauce

Summer Rituals

It is a given that Zucchini season will find my leafing through the pages of “Cooking with Curtis Grace”, a collection of recipes from The Ninth Street House restaurant in Paducah, Ky.  Page 75 shares the only Zucchini Bread recipe we have ever used in this house.  I’m not saying I always follow it to a T but it is where our Zucchini Bread begins and I return to it annually. 

Having pulled this cookbook from the shelf I begin flipping toward page 75. Along the way something always catches my eye. I pass Cold Chocolate Fruit Soup and Sis Michael’s Prepare Ahead Salad on the way. Then, having gone too far, I backtrack past Raisin Cream Pie and Aunt Blanche’s Strawberry Pizza.  Some of the recipes I linger over have a reputation that precedes them.  With others, it’s the quirky name that sparks my attention. By the time I get to the Zucchini Bread recipe there is always something new I want to try. 

A Hive Mentality

This time the recipe I can’t resist is Beehive Peach with Bourbon Sauce.  It’s hard to believe that I never noticed it before. I love honey so the beehive part first caught my attention.  Skimming through the recipe, however, I see that honey is not listed as an ingredient.  It is the shape alone that the beehive refers too.  

On the other hand, aside from the sauce, there are only two ingredients in this recipe, peaches and pie dough.  You can hardly beat that for simplicity. And if that’s not enough to convince you to give it a try, the first line of the recipe takes the simplicity even further when it tells us “Do not peel peaches or remove seeds.”  

I don’t know about you, but I’m intrigued. Cute beehive concept. Two ingredients. No need to peel. What’s not to love? I’m in.

Even the sauce for the Beehive Peach is fairly simple to make.  I did change it around a bit. I added honey because, well, it is a beehive.  I also reduced the amount of sugar and nutmeg by half.  The bourbon adds a wonderful bite to the flavor of the sauce but you can skip it if you prefer.  In fact, to make this recipe super simple, you could just skip making the sauce altogether and top the beehives with a little drizzle of good honey at the table. Sometimes consistency is everything.

Beehive Peach with Bourbon Sauce

Course: DessertCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy

Servings

6

servings

Prep time

30

minutes

Baking Time

45 min

Beehive Peach with Bourbon Sauce is a perfect way to end a summer meal. Cute beehive concept. Two ingredients plus sauce. No need to peel. What’s not to love?

Ingredients

• 6 medium size peaches

• Pastry for a two crust pie (You can use the recipe for Nearly Foolproof Pie Dough, your own favorite recipe or ready made pie crust.)

• Sauce:

• 1 stick butter

• 1 cup sifted powdered sugar

• 2 Tablespoons honey

• ½ teaspoon nutmeg

• 1 egg, beaten

• 1 or 2 ounces of bourbon

Directions

• Do not peel or pit peaches. Gently remove stem, rinse peaches with water and set aside to dry.
• Roll out pie dough and cut into ½” to ¾” strips.
• Cover slightly damp peaches with strips of pie dough. Start at the stem end covering the bottom with a small section of dough.
  
• Overlap this section of dough with the first strip around the peach.
  
• Continue covering the peach, overlapping the strips of dough, ½ over the other, round and round, until peach is covered, gathering the last strip at the top. Press the strips together gently to seal but without distorting the appearance of the strips.
  
• Decorate the beehives, if desired. Roll out scraps of dough and use bee shaped mini-cutters or create free-form bees by hand.
  
• Brush dough with melted butter or a bit of the egg white from the egg to be used in the sauce.
  
• Sprinkle with granulated sugar.
  
• Place covered peaches, stem end down, on parchment lined baking sheet.
• Bake at 400F for about 45 minutes, or until golden brown.
• Remove from oven and allow to cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.
• Sauce:
• Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan over low heat.
• When the butter is just melted, whisk in the powdered sugar, honey, nutmeg and beaten egg.
• Bring to a slow simmer over low heat, stirring constantly. Do not allow mixture to boil.
• Add bourbon, whisking until well blended. Remove from heat.
• Spoon sauce over peach and serve.
• Enjoy!

Notes

• Adapted from “Cooking with Curtis Grace: A Collection of Favorite Recipes From Curtis Grace and His Ninth Street House Restaurant” p. 145
• Does a Beehive Peach appeal to you but not the Bourbon Sauce? Try Summer Berry Basil Sauce or Huckleberry Thyme Sauce. Both are delicious with peaches.
• Prefer not to fuss with a sauce? A simple drizzle of honey could be substituted for the Bourbon Sauce.  A spoonful of mascarpone cheese would also make a nice complement. You could serve a Beehive Peach with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or Old-Timey Whipped Cream topping.  Or, if your peach was wonderfully ripe and flavorful to begin with, just have it as is, with nothing else at all.  You really can’t go wrong.   
• Beehive Peaches can be a fun group project.   Try making them with friends or family. Give each person a portion of pie dough and a peach or roll and cut the dough into strips in advance.  Gather to wrap the peaches and cut out little bees to decorate.  No bee cutter? Roll up bits of dough to make a bee or shape marzipan bees to add later.