Cranberries are a vital part of the holiday season for many Americans. In my family, we cook them up into a sweet sauce flavored with oranges, vanilla bean and spices and the kids eat them by the bowl full. It is one tradition that I really will miss this holiday season. We relocated from Nashville to Williamsburg and our family group that gathered together each Thanksgiving and Christmas is now separated by nearly 700 miles. Even so, I couldn’t resist buying a bag or two, or four of cranberries and had to find a tasty way to use so many fresh cranberries. Thankfully, this recipe used more than half of a bag, and now I only have 3 and a half more bags in the fridge…
The recipe gives you some good options and I decided to test some of them out. With two different dough recipes to choose from, I decided to mix up a batch of the sweet tart dough and as I mixed it, I chose to follow the recipe suggested in the “Bonne Idee” sidebar; it gave the option of using a small portion nut flour in place of the all purpose flour called for in the recipe. It was quick to mix up in the food processor but I really think the amount of dough it produces was about double what was needed to make the pie shell. As a result, I formed a patty with the leftover dough and tucked it away in the freezer.
As a person who literally has rolled out hundreds of pie shells by hand, this dough was very pleasant to work with and I did not have any sticking or crumbling or tearing. It was so easy to work with that I had the crust rolled and in the pan in a matter of minutes. Where I had issues, the baking time. When I read the instructions and saw 20 minutes at 400, I was skeptical, it seemed like a long time for such a high temp. In hindsight, I wish I had listened to my inner voice. My crust came out of the oven a little black around the edges. Luckily, I had not trimmed it down by one-third as the recipe called for and had enough to trim away the burnt edges and still have a side crust.
The filling of a marshmallowy meringue was such a small amount that I had trouble mixing it in my 6qt kitchen aid bowl; it just wasn’t enough volume for the beater to really come in contact with it at first. After a really long time, it finally came together. Since I did not want to buy any jam-I have two dozen jars of homemade blackberry jelly in my pantry, I just used some of my own from the open jar in the fridge.
As the tart baked in the oven, it puffed and cracked and finally, it was a nice, light golden shade and had a few deep cracks across the top. Carefully, I removed the pan from the oven, closed the door and set it down to cool. A quick glance at the clock, 11:12pm; we wouldn’t be tasting this pie tonight. Off to bed, to sleep and to dream of crunchy, crackly meringue and tart pockets of ruby red berries…
will garden for cake 