Tag: cranberry

The fresh oranges, yogurt and perky mint leaves will take your mind (but maybe not your hips) off the cookie crust, not to mention all the sugar in the cranberry juice. You can always use light berry juice, but it’s tastier to go with the regular kind and just hit the gym a little earlier the next day.

Graham Cracker Crust

for a single crust pie

1. 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
2. ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
3. 1 tbs granulated sugar or honey
4. 1 tsp flour

Preheat the oven to 350°

Combine all the ingredients

Press into a pie plate, starting in the center and working outward toward the sides until the bottom and sides are covered

Bake 10-15 minutes

Cranberry-Orange Smoothie Filling

1. 1 envelope unflavored gelatin
2. ⅓ cup cranberry juice
3. 3 cups fresh orange segments
4. 2 cups plain yogurt
5. fresh mint leaves, for garnish

Preheat the oven to 350°

In a small saucepan, sprinkle the gelatin over the cranberry juice

Set aside for 5 minutes

Over medium heat, whisking constantly, cook the gelatin and juice, 3 - 4 minutes

Remove from heat and let cool completely

In a blender, combine the gelatin mixture with oranges and yogurt until smooth

Pour the filling into the cooled pie crust

Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 4 hours

Put fresh mint leaves on top

From Fran W. in Massachusetts:

Dear Penelope,

This is my recipe for the pie I always want to make for Thanksgiving, but never get the chance to because we have Thanksgiving dinner every year at my sister-in-law’s house and she and her mother (aka, my mother-in-law) have a total lock on the celebratory baking. Even though I’m a very good baker, I always get stuck doing the carrots or something equally unglamorous. But I’ve been making this Cranberry-Walnut Pie for twenty years, for all kinds of occasions, and people love it. It’s an especially good Thanksgiving dessert. It’s much prettier than the pumpkin pie my sister-in-law always bakes. It’s not too sweet, so it makes a nice contrast to the pecan pie my mother-in-law does every year. It’s a practical pie for a holiday dinner too, because it can be made a full day in advance. And it’s not particularly fragile so it’s easy to transport. Anyway, maybe someone visiting your site would like to make it for his or her Thanksgiving dinner next year, or for another event, and maybe even get credit for it. I made it for a New Year’s Eve party last year, and it was a winner!

Best Regards, Fran

“Hang in there, Fran. Penelope feels sure your confectionary glass slipper is about to find you.”

Pie Crust

1. 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
2. ¼ teaspoon salt
3. 1 teaspoon sugar
4. 12 tablespoons (1 ½ sticks) cold unsalted butter
5. 1 to 2 tablespoons ice water (or a combination of ice water and lemon juice)

Put the flour, salt and sugar in the bowl of a food processor (fitted with the sharp metal blade.)

Cut the butter into pieces and scatter it over the flour

Process by pulsing the processor on and off until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs

Add 1 tablespoon of water. If the mixture looks dry, add the remaining tablespoon of liquid (It should look like sticky, coarse breadcrumbs.)

Pour the dough into a plastic food storage bag, and knead the dough through the plastic bag until it comes together into a flattened ball. (The plastic bag is optional; you can also just knead the dough on a flat surface with a little flour, but the bag is a lot neater.)

Place the dough (in its bag or wrapped in plastic) in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Filling

1. 1 orange
2. 2 cups cranberries
3. 4 ounces walnuts
4. ⅓ cup sugar
5. 2 teaspoons flour
6. pinch of salt
7. 1 egg, lightly beaten

Peel the orange and cut the peel into narrow, short strips

Put the julienned peel into a small saucepan of boiling water for a few minutes, to blanch it, then drain and put it in a medium bowl

Squeeze the orange to generate about 1/2 cup of orange juice, and add it to the orange peel

Grind the cranberries and walnuts coarsely and add to the peel and juice

Add the sugar, flour and salt, and mix well

Preheat the oven to 400°

Take the dough out of the refrigerator and roll out to fill a 9″ tart pan

Place the crust in the pan, trimming the excess

Re-roll the excess dough and cut it into strips with a fluted pastry wheel (or a knife) (Also check out Lattice Crust)

Fill the pie shell with the cranberry walnut filling in the tart pan, spreading it so it is even

Use the strips to make a lattice top for the pie

Brush the lattice top with the beaten egg

Bake the pie for 10 minutes, then lower the heat to 350° and continue to bake the pie for about another 40 minutes, until the top is golden and the filling is cooked

Serve the pie at room temperature, on its own or with some whipped cream,crème fraiche or vanilla ice cream

The original recipe was from a book called “KeepingCompany” by Moira Hodgson, published in the late 1980’s.

The bakery at Russell Orchards sells five different kinds of apple pie (Apple, Apple Crumb Top, Apple Mince, Apple Cranberry, and Apple Crisp) because the orchards have that many different kinds of apple trees. Sounds logical, but if you were raised closer to a freeway interchange than an actual piece of farmland, you might not connect the dots. Besides the bakery, which has an amazing selection of homemade pies with all the other fruits and berries grown at Russell Orchards, you can visit the store in a restored 18th century barn, where they sell antiques, baskets, jams, jellies and more. Penelope doesn’t know what your family was doing in the 18th century, but hers wasn’t tapping maple syrup or pressing cider, so a visit to the farm on Saturday mornings (not until the Fall, but worth the wait) when you can watch them press cider, can be particularly instructive. If you can’t get there, you can order from the day’s menu of freshly baked pies at Russell Orchards.

Apple-Cranberry-Raisin Pie

Pate Brisee

for a double crust pie

The Filling

1. 4 large tart apples, cored, peeled and sliced
2. 1 cup cranberries
3. ½ cup raisins
4. ½ cup sugar
5. ¼ tsp salt
6. 2 tbs flour
7. 2 tbs butter, cut into small bits
8. grated lemon rind

Place the apples in a large mixing bowl

Scatter the cranberries and raisins over them

In a small mixing bowl, combine the sugar, salt and flour

Pour the dry ingredients over the fruit mixture and toss well to combine

Pile the fruit mixture into the pastry lined pie pan

Dot with the butter and lemon rind

Put on the top crust

Bake at 425° for about 45 minutes

The whole thing about homemade pies is that they’re not perfect. The tops are supposed to be uneven. The fluting on the crust doesn’t have to have all the same angles. The steam vents are supposed to be different lengths.“That’s why,” Melissa Howell from Washington State, told Penelope, “I dislike the stamps for dough designs or perfect crust vents. Whenever I would bake with my (then) teenage daughter and she’d fuss with fancy vent designs, I would say, ‘They’re not socks. They don’t have to match.’ And usually she would just shrug and go with it. “Now, I don’t know if it was just adolescence, but one day she brought home one of those kitschy bluebird pie stamps. I was just about to give her my usual speech when she turned to me and practically shouted, “Mom, did it ever occur to you that some people might like a well-designed, perfectly matched, beautifully even pie crust! Maybe you’re too old or too, I don’t know, disappointed with life to even hope for it anymore, but is perfection too much to expect! ”Apparently steam vents also come in different ages.

Ginger Apple-Cranberry Pie With Variable Steam Vents

Use Penelope’s Ultimate Pie Crust for a double crust pie. Or your own favorite.

Ingredients

1. 5 large tart apples, peeled, quartered, cored and thinly sliced lengthwise
2. 1 cup fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped
3. 1/3 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
4. grated zest from 1 lemon
5. 3 tbs all purpose flour
6. 1 cup granulated sugar
7. ¼ tsp ground allspice
8. 3 tbs unsalted butter, in bits

Optional Decoration

1. 3 tbs heavy cream
2. 2 tbs raw sugar

Chuck Williams recommends Pippin, Granny Smith or McIntosh apples

Make the pie crusts; set both aside

Preheat the oven to 425°

Use a large bowl to combine the apples, cranberries, ginger and lemon zest

Then use a small bowl and toss together the flour, granulated sugar, salt, and allspice

Add the contents of the small bowl to the fruit in the large bowl and toss well

Arrange the fruit in the pie shall, piling it high in the center. Or not, if you’re feeling a little off center. At least make it sort of even to give all the fruit a fighting chance at baking through.

Dot with the butter bits

Brush the pastry rim with water and lay the top crust over the fruit

Press down around the rim, then trim and flute or leave a plain edge

Now make 3 or 4, or 5 or 6 steam vents in the top — whatever is the truest expression of you

For a little extra glitz, brush the top of the pie with the heavy cream and then sprinkle with the raw sugar

Bake for 15 minutes at 425°

Reduce the heat to 350° and continue baking until the crust is golden and the fruit is tender when pierced through one of the slits, probably another 50-55 minutes

Put on a wire rack to cool

Serve it warm or at room temperature

Makes one 9 inch, double crust pie.