If you’re a lover of cranberry sauce, you will like this pie a lot. It’s very much like a fresh cranberry filled pie, and it has a buttery and flaky crust. It’s not a very common pie to bake, but it’s definitely one to consider when you have access to fresh cranberries in the fall. For my latest pie cookbook purchase, I was faced with deciding what sort of pie to bake from the large selection of choices in the book. The cranberry pie recipe was calling my name because it wasn’t a pie variety that I had considered before. Plus, it’s almost Thanksgiving… so it seemed like the obvious choice.
Art of the Pie
This recipe comes from a beautiful cookbook of pies by Kate McDermott: Art of the Pie- A Practical Guide to Homemade Crusts, Fillings and Life. I’ve gathered quite a few pie cookbooks over the years, and this one is one of my favorites. What do I like about it? There is such a great wealth of information about pie in this book! Pie crust has always been challenging for me, and this book offers 67 pages of tips and tricks for how to be successful with making pie dough. There are recipes for several kinds of pie dough included- even several gluten-free varieties! There are chapters on apple pie, fruit pies, stone fruit pies, rhubarb and citrus, creamy and nutty pies and savory pies too. Here are a few pie recipes from the book that are on my pie baking bucket list: Blackberry Pie, Huckleberry Pie, Blueberry Peach Pie, Nectarine Pie, Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, Angel Food Pie, Chess Pie and Shepard’s Pie. This is a great baking book to add to your cookbook shelf!
How to make Cranberry Pie:
You’ll need four cups of fresh cranberries for this recipe. Three cups of the cranberries are given a rough chop in the food processor. The chopped cranberries are combined with the remaining cup of whole cranberries- plus sugar, nutmeg, cornstarch, salt and a little bit of Grand Marnier (or orange zest). That cranberry filling is placed into an unbaked pie crust. You can use the crust recipe that I’ve included in the recipe below, or you can use your own recipe or the store bought crust.
I must admit that I was a little worried that the filling in this pie would be sour. Cranberries, after all, are known for being sour! Not to worry. The cranberries are combined with plenty of sugar to offset their sour nature. It turns into a filling that tastes a lot like a really good, chunky cranberry sauce. It’s delicious!
The Pie Crust:
The all-butter crust recipe included with the recipe comes from the Art of the Pie cookbook as well. I consider myself “crust challenged” at times, and I found this crust recipe to be very easy to work with and the texture and flavor was good too. One of the most important things in preparing crust is to make sure you give the dough time to chill before rolling. Don’t rush it! If you follow the instructions as they’re written, you are likely to have success. You can choose to make either a lattice topper for your pie or a traditional top crust with vents. It’s up to you!
Tools that are helpful in making pie crust:
A pastry cutter makes combining the dry ingredients with the butter so much easier. If you don’t have one, you can use your hands to combine or two knives to cut them together. But the pastry cutter is a great tool to have for making pie crust. If you want to make a lattice-type top to your pie, be sure to pick up a pastry wheel. You can cut decorative, even strips with this little tool!
You can bake this pie a day ahead of serving. Keep it on the counter or refrigerate it. Serve it with a little whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. And be proud of the fresh cranberry pie that you’re serving to your guests!
Here are a few more pie recipes you might like to try:
Shoofly Pie Key Lime Pie Sweet Potato Pie Apple Butter Pie Paper Bag Pear Pie Lemon Sour Cream Pie Peanut Butter Crunch Pie Cherry Slab Pie
