Pie of the Week - Cranberry Pie Deux

Winter's almost over and I still have two bags of cranberries in the freezer. I know, I said I would attempt cranberry pie again after that shaky and barely palatable first attempt. Lessons learned, as they say in corporate life. I'll do it better this time!

If you were not tuned in during the post-Thanksgiving cranberry pie experiment, let me just give you the bottom line again:

Cranberries are SOUR. Their sourness will dominate any other flavor note in the filling unless you curb it with even more sugar than you think. If you don't get the sugar right, no one will taste the citrus, apple, pear, or cinnamon, or clove, or whatever other delightful accessory flavors you were so excited about. And your guests will not be able to force a full serving of this pie down, because their faces will be turning inside out with pucker. Sac Pie has already run this experiment so you don't have to. Trust me!

Cranberries impart terrific health benefits to us along with that puckerful punch that makes your jaws lock up. Loaded with vitamin C and antioxidants, very hardy and relatively non-perishable, they can make a great addition to your dessert repertoire if you handle them right. They need to be cooked and sweetened in order to be palatable. Just writing this is making my eyes water...

Sac Pie began with friend Kim's cranberry relish recipe again, and this time was in possession of several estate-grown oranges with which to add flavorful sophistication to the pie filling.

The cranberries, frozen, as I said, were thawed and then rinsed gently. I hewed closely to the original recipe, namely combining

1 c. orange juice

1 c (organic cane juice) sugar

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1.5 tsp clove

1 T minced fresh ginger plus a strip of dried sliced ginger (removed after cooking)

1/2 c golden raisins

in a saucepan on the stove. I boiled the juice until the sugar was dissolved. Then I added the cranberries and other ingredients and cooked it just until everything was combined. I cooled the mixture for about 2 hours.

The spicing and additional fruit is completely up to you. All will be well if you just remember that the critical thing is the sweetener (we can run the experiment next season with brown rice syrup or honey). In this incarnation, in addition to the cranberries, I used 1 chopped apple and about a T of orange zest in the filling (after it had cooled).

After adding the sugar-spice combination to the cranberries and mixing, I sprinkled in a scant teaspoon of tapioca for a thickener.

Voila! A carnival in a pie shell. Maybe for Mardi Gras or Valentine's Day next year?

A few pats of butter, a full pie lid, and into the oven at 400 degrees for 50 minutes.

This time, the pie filling was much more temperate and sparkly in flavor, rather than aggressively tart and borderline obnoxious. I liked having the apple chunks and the raisins for textural variety. The seasoning really does remind me of the mince pie combination. I completely forgot my note-to-self from last fall about adding a little booze. I think that amaretto or kirsch would be an interesting note. But even foregoing that, I think the combination really comes together as a result of the sugar to buffer the acidity of the cranberries.

Don't forget to try the recipe above as a cranberry relish, which is its origin, after all. And thank you again, Kim, for getting me started on this. I can cater you a slice, if you like!

Pie of the Week - Cranberry Pie

This week - a pie and a bonus condiment!

Cranberries are in season and I was inspired by our Thanksgiving hostess, Kim, and her cranberry relish recipe to try to make a pie with it. After my first taste of her relish, I was reminded of a good mincemeat filling, but this was ever so slightly more tart and bright, both in flavor and color.

I've cooked cranberries perhaps twice in my entire life, both so long ago I barely remember how they turned out. It was an orange-noted conserve of some sort, which no one else would eat.

After the Quince Near-Debacle, I was feeling a little more cautious about this pie. Would the cranberries cook inside the pie crust and hold together when the pie was sliced? Or should I hedge my bets and follow Kim's recipe strictly, cooking the entire filling first? Would that liquid component all end up at the bottom of the pie in a gooshy mess? Would it be too sweet or too tart?

Would it be, you know, good?

The recipe for the filling (thank you, Kim!) was

2 packages of fresh cranberries

1 cup of orange juice

1 cup of sugar

to taste: raisins, chopped dried apricots, and other fruit (grated apple?) to taste (I used about a cup total of raisin and apricot)

to taste: cinnamon, grated or chopped fresh ginger (or powdered), clove

Kim's instruction for the relish calls for boiling the juice and sugar on the stove, and then adding the fruit and spices. This mixture would be cooked until the cranberries popped. Using the ingredients listed above, it's the best cranberry relish I've ever had.

For the pie filling, I opted for the following modifications:

1c. combined orange and cherry juice

1/2 c. sugar

1 tsp. each cinnamon, clove

I cooked the juice and sugar, adding about a tablespoon of chopped fresh ginger. I strained the ginger out and then poured the liquid over the cranberries, raisins, and apricots. I added a tablespoon of flour to the fruit mixture and stirred it in with about 1/2 tsp. of ground ginger.

I loaded all that into two 8" pie shells, topped it with a few pats of butter and a full top crust, and baked it for about 50 minutes. I used a hotter than normal temperature of 425 degrees, to make sure those cranberries really cooked. I watched, I brooded. It smelled nice.

This pie turned out better than I had reason to expect, based on my pie-on-the-fly mods to a recipe I'd never made. No, there was no pool of wet goo at the bottom. Yes, the cranberries cooked thoroughly and sufficiently to hold together upon slicing. As you can see, the pie has a bright crazy pink color - like strawberry-rhubarb pie - and distinct pieces of fruit with their own flavors and textures intact. It evokes a holiday mood and immediately induces good cheer, even before you bite into it.

I would do it all over again; however, next time, it needs the full cup of sugar. Yes, really. As constructed this week, it was pleasantly tart but almost at the edge of pleasantness for sensitive palates. A bit of ice cream would temper that very well if you need a foil for those cranberries. The spicing was a little too conservative in this pie - the ginger, cinnamon, and clove could be increased to 1.5 to 2 tsp. each. Fresh cranberries seem to easily overpower spice, so I don't think subtlety is what you're after. One modification that I will introduce next time is to add a splash of rum to the boiled liquids.

I can't think of too many fruit pie fillings that double as a chilled holiday condiment. I am thrilled that this recipe works for both. Do you have any other recipes like this to share? Sac Pie would love to hear from you!