You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who knows more about Southern baking than my friend, Cheryl Day.

She's an expert cook, a clever teacher, a bestselling cookbook author.

And as fun as can be.

It's a joy to welcome her into my kitchen to share one of her favorite peach recipes.

My friend, I have dreamed of this day for years and years.

- [laughing] Years.

- Yes.

Now I remember exactly when we met.

We, being food people, were on our way in pursuit of a good meal.

- And we sat next to each other - Always.

- And talked and talked.

And we've been talking ever since, haven't we?

- About food.

- About food.

- And here we are.

- And here we are.

And I hear, there's rumor, you're gonna teach me how to make your famous peach hand pies.

- I am.

- So I see you've got our pretties laid out here.

Our peaches, gorgeous peaches.

Now I noticed they're not peeled.

- And you know.

- Thank you for noticing that.

- Yeah, tell me your approach to when to peel and not to peel.

- So actually my approach now is not to peel.

- Okay.

- Easy peasy.

I'm a not-peel girl, because I love the color and I don't know, have you noticed that peaches don't seem to be as fuzzy.

They don't seem to have that fuzzy skin.

- They've done something.

Exactly.

So what, what good stuff do we put in here?

- So we've got our peaches, but we can go ahead and put our sugar in.

- [Sheri] Just light brown sugar.

- Yep.

Light brown sugar.

And we'll give that a little toss and then we will add in the flour.

- Now do you always thicken pie filling with flour?

Or do you let the fruit tell you what it needs?

- I let the fruit tell me what it needs, Sheri.

All right.

So now I'm just looking at it and to me just, I feel like the next thing this needs is lemon juice.

- All right.

- So, we'll add that in and then we're going to add bourbon.

- Amen.

The affinity of peach and bourbon is just- - [Cheryl] It's so good.

- It's is.

It is.

It's perfect.

- So we'll get that tossed in.

And then we've got salt, because you always need salt, even with sweet things, it brings out the flavor.

And so then we've got our lemon zest.

I love to play with spices.

So cardamom is something- - One of my favorite spices.

- Is that one of yours too?

- I think that people don't love cardamom like they should.

- [whispering] I love it.

- And I always say, if you don't know when to try it, replace cinnamon with cardamom once and see how it works out for ya.

- Absolutely.

Oh my goodness.

Like an apple pie.

- Right.

- I just love it.

And then lastly, we've got some nutmeg.

So you can see where the juices are coming out.

It's starting to, you know, the flour is doing its job.

Gonna thicken it just a little bit, because we still want 'em to be juicy in our hand pies.

But that's our filling.

So this is perfect.

So this is ready.

- Okay.

[calypso style music] So I see pastry, you're amazing pie crust pastry, right?

- Yes.

- Is it an all butter?

- It is.

And you know, sometimes people are afraid of doing the all butter.

I have mixed, I've done lard, I've done all kinds, but this is my favorite.

We're gonna fill 'em up.

If you could pass me that egg and then I will make our little egg wash. - You need a whisk?

- I do need a little whisk.

- And egg wash. What's the purpose of that?

- So this style of egg wash is for the way that it looks.

Basically, it's going to also brown it, but it's gonna give it like a nice little sheen to it.

So now we've got our filling.

It's nice and juicy.

So I'm gonna, you do wanna put some of that juice in there.

You know, you don't want it to be too full.

- You gotta direct me here.

- Just kinda eyeball it.

- About that like that?

- Yeah, that looks great.

And then we'll put that in the center and then I'm gonna steal this little brush.

I'm gonna just do a little on the side.

- [Sheri] So that's gonna be glue.

In addition to that look, that's gonna be our glue - [Cheryl] Yeah.

Exactly.

- [Sheri] That holds our pastry together.

- [Cheryl] It'll be our glue.

You can also do water.

So we're gonna just fold this in a triangle.

- All right, just fold that over here.

Make our edges.

- And then just kind of pull your edge where you have enough space and that looks perfect.

And then we will just kind of seal that up.

- Should I use a fork, my fingers?

Or does it matter?

- I like to use a fork because you know, with pie dough you don't wanna futz with it.

So that's that.

So I think we should finish these up.

- Okay.

Well would you look at that?

All folded, all crimped, what comes next?

- So next, if you can hand me that little fancy little tool.

- I love those things.

- I have a collection of these.

I just love them.

- And they're called pastry wheels, right?

- Yeah, it's a pastry wheel.

And so what we're gonna do is just kind of trim that edge right there.

And it seems like a a quick, easy thing to do, but what it does, Sheri, is that edge will kind of flake up.

- Oo.

- It'll kind of do a little fly up on the edge and it just looks really pretty.

- [Sheri] I love that.

- The final flourish is we're going to egg wash, just lightly egg wash the tops.

- [Sheri] The very same one that we use for the little glue around the edges.

- [Cheryl] Same one.

Same one.

And then I'll let you, very liberally, we're gonna do the demerara sugar.

- I love this raw crunchy sugar, because not only does it add sweetness, it adds that crunch.

- It does and it looks so pretty too.

- Love this stuff - And isn't that, you know, eating with your... and then I'll let you finish up that edge and then what we'll do is get these on our pan.

- Okay, I'm learning so much.

This is great.

- It's all set.

- And we get rewarded by pie in a few minutes.

- I mean, that's the best part.

Truly.

- Exactly.

[light music] Look at these.

Look at these.

- We did that.

- There's the edge you promised.

- [Cheryl] Look at that little flake.

- [Sheri] Mm, just a little cheese bubbling.

- Right there.

Oh, I'm ready.

- You know, let's eat these by hand.

They're hand pie for Pete's sake.

- They're hand pies.

Yeah, absolutely.

- Look at this color though.

I mean they are truly beautiful.

And that's what you get from a well-made crust.

- I mean look at that.

- It's gonna hold in here.

It's gonna hold the filling.

- [Cheryl] It's flaky, buttery.

- [Sheri] And our peaches.

- And you can see how that juice just jelled up and set just perfectly.

Oh, I'm gonna take this juicy bite first.

Should we go for it?

- Uh-huh.

- Talk about flaky.

- Holy Moses.

- See all that?

- You got peaches, you've got that little hint of lemon.

Can I have one for both hands?

If I eat this one can I reload and have one in both hands.

[both laughing] Cheryl, my goodness.

You know, like I said, I've waited for years- to have you over - That came out perfect.

so we could cook together.

- It was worth it.

- It is.

And now we're gonna do it again.

- Cheers.

- Cheers, my friend.

To peaches.

- Peaches.

- Thank you, friend.

[upbeat music fading] [upbeat music]