She’s My Cranberry Pie

My brother made this cranberry pie for t-day, and I am officially of the new-found belief that cranberries should be enjoyed year-round. This delicious dessert is tart and sweet, with not even a passing resemblance to that canned cranberry stuff that always finds its way to the corner of the t-day table.

Cape Cod Cranberry “Linzer” Pie in Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax pg 512-513

2 crust pie – 9 inch
1 orange
1 1/4 c. sugar
2 c. fresh or frozen cranberries washed and picked over
1 1/2 c. sweet apples or pears peeled, cored and cut into 1/2 in. diced
1 TBSP minced crystallized ginger
1/4 raisins golden or regular
Milk and cinnamon sugar for glaze

Preheat oven to 375

Remove the zest from the orange in strips with a vegetable peeler and
squeeze the juice from the orange. Place zest in a food processor with 1/2
c. of the sugar. Process until zest is finely chopped. Add about 1 c. of the
cranberries and pulse until the berries are coarsely chopped. Transfer the
mixture to a bowl and stir in remaining 1 c. whole cranberries, 3/4 sugar,
orange juice, apples or pears, ginger, and raisins.

You can lattice the top crust or leave it whole, just add slits in the top
for air to get out. Lightly brush the top crust with milk and sprinkle a
little of the cinnamon sugar over that.

Cook about 1 hour or until the crust is golden and filling is bubbly

Of course, we can’t just leave you with instructions to use a store-bought pie crust – after the jump, a recipe my sister-in-law uses for a perfect, flaky pie crust. Plus, a bonus pie recipe.

Master 3-2-1 Flaky Pie Dough from The Secrets of Baking by Sherry Yard pg 209

½ lb. (2 sticks) of cold unsalted butter

2 ½ c. all-purpose flour

2 TBSP sugar

1 tsp. salt

½ c. Iced water

½ tsp. white wine vinegar or Champagne vinegar (I don’t put this in)

Cut the butter into 1-inch pieces and place it in the freezer to chill for 15 mins.

Sift together the flour and sugar and place in a bowl.

Add the partially frozen butter and salt using a wire pastry cutter, incorporate it into the flour until the butter is coarsely mixed in. Note: do not mix the butter too fine with the flour or the dough will not come out. Make sure that the butter is about the size of broken pieces of walnuts.

Add the water and vinegar all at once and mix until the mixture come together, it should be tacky but not sticky. (I sometimes have to add more water than what the recipe calls for.)

Remove the dough and form it into a ball and cover it completely with plastic wrap and chill for about an hour. The dough will keep in the fridge for about 3 days and in the freezer for 3 weeks. For freezing, roll the dough into sheets and wrap them airtight in plastic film first.

And in even more surprising news, I was drawn into the world of baking myself, when gansie sent me this recipe from WaPo’s Kim O’Donnell with the subject line “pine nuts in pie!” Clearly I was hooked. Def not everyone’s cup of tea, but it got a lot of classic “hmm…interesting” remarks.