Is it pie season? I think it is! Pie season is also known as the frienemie of the beach body diet, but hey, who gives two fucks about a beach body when you have a plate of delicious pie and ice cream in front of you, yes? Yes. Ok good, I knew you would agree with me on this one.

With the good weather ahead there’s lots of awesome fruit coming to the local markets, except here in Vancouver where we are currently experiencing some serious “Junuary” weather with rain and shit. But hey I did manage to find some super tasty nectarines and were just beeeegging to be used in a pie.

The flavour inspiration for this pie comes from a summer classic: iced tea! You know? That peachy tasting cold iced tea. I thought of combining those two together and here’s the result; a pie with juicy nectarines, ground black tea (with sugar), on a bed of ground amaretti cookies (cuz peach or nectarines are besties with anything amaretto), all encased in a dairy-free crust. Whoooo gurl, you’re in for a treat.

Full recipe and notes after the jump!

This recipe is aaalmost vegan, except for the fact that I brushed the crust with egg wash, so if you’re vegan and want to eat this pie, then just swap the egg wash for something else.

You can use any kind of tea you like, earl grey is a good option as it’s very flowery and goes super nice with the fruit. For winter months you could even use a matcha and blackberry option of sorts, no?

Ok here’s the full recipe. Oh! And feel free to play around with your crust (ew, sounds bad haha). Braid it, twist it, or go wild like I did.

Nectarine, Tea, and Amaretti Pie (Dairy-Free)

Makes one 9 inch pie

Ingredients:

For the dough:
– 3 cups all-purpose flour
– 1/3 cup sugar
– 1 teaspoon kosher salt
– 130g cold vegan shortening (I used non-salted earth bound)
– 80g cold coconut oil (if it’s too hot and it has melted just put it in the fridge)
– 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
– 1/2 cup (ish) iced water

For the filling:
– 1kg nectarines (about 7 or 8 small nectarines)
– 1/3 cup sugar
– 1 tablespoon black tea
– 1 tablespoon corn starch
– 2 tablespoons lemon juice
– 1 teaspoon lemon zest
– 1 teaspoons vanilla extract
– 1 cup amaretti cookies

Instructions:

1. First make the dough: start by putting the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Add the shortening and coconut oil and using a couple forks or a pastry blender, break the shortening and oil in small pieces, work them until the mix looks like coarse sand with little bits of shortening and coconut oil left (not big chunks). Combine the apple cider vinegar and water and add it to the flour mix and combine just until the come together. Wrap in plastic and let the dough chill in the fridge for about 2 hours minimum.

2. To prepare the filling, first pit and slice the nectarines. Take the sugar and black tea and put them in a blender or food processor and pulse until tea is ground and there are not big pieces left. Place the fruit in a bowl, add the tea sugar, corn starch, lemon juice and zest, and the vanilla. Toss to combine and set aside.

3. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a pie mould and have it ready to go.

4.Take the dough out of the fridge, divide it in half. Roll one half until it’s slightly larger than the size of your baking dish. Repeat the same step for the other half. Transfer one half into the baking dish (that’ll be your pie bottom) and poke it with a fork. Now crush the amaretti cookies until they’re crumbly and add them at the bottom of the crust, add your fruit. The top crust can be anything you like, you can simply put the other half you rolled as it and poke a few holes through it OR you can go creative. Egg wash and bake. Bake for about 40 to 45 minutes until golden brown.

Notes: if the crust is getting too dark and the pie is not ready, then loosely cover the pie with aluminum foil so it bakes without burning.

Serve the pie with a BIIIIG scoop of vanilla ice cream and enjoy!