Pre-Christmas Experiment

Pin It

OK, so what is it you want to do when you've finally figured out how to do something? Perfect it! Well, I do anyway...if it's something I end up enjoying, that is. So, since my first experiment with pie-making went soooo well I decided to flip through my recipes that I haven't tried yet to find something good. David and I have a tendency of keeping apples in the refrigerator, then not eating them...and we all know what happens to apples after a while. Because of this I was kind of leaning towards an apple recipe, if anything to keep from letting those apples spoil. Plus, apple recipes are always the best, am I right? Therefore, as I was flipping I came across a recipe I "stole" from my Aunt Rosie. I say stole, but she really just let me have it. About two or three years ago I was at her house flipping through a Wal-Mart recipes little magazine and ran across about five or six recipes that looked tasty. After promising to give her back the recipes I tried and discovered were good, she let me take the magazine. Well, Aunt Rosie, here you go!

Cranberry Apple Pie

1 1/2 cups peeled, chopped cooking apples
1/4 cup corn starch
1 1/2 cups cranberries, fresh or frozen
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoons grated orange peel
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 (9 inch) unbaked pie crusts

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine apples and corn starch in a small bowl; set aside. Mix cranberries, sugar, salt, corn syrup and water in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat 5 minutes or until skins pop, stirring frequently. Remove from heat; add orange peel, butter, and apple mixture. Place one crust in pie pan. Pour in filling. Top with remaining crust. Flute edges and cut slits in top crust. Bake for 10 minutes; reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake 40 minutes longer or until lightly browned.

**I actually used dried cranberries for this recipe and they turned out great. However, next time I make this pie I will probably reduce the amount to one cup because they plumped up in the oven. This will only be the case if I used dried again, if I use frozen or fresh it'll be 1 1/2 cups all the way! Also, since I used dried cranberries-the skins didn't "pop" so I just cooked this for the 5 minutes and called it good.

**Also, I cut up the two apples in my fridge, which came to a mound of 2 cups and I used them all, so don't be afraid to throw a few extra in if the ones you cut up give you a surplus.

This is what the pie looked like before I put the top crust on and baked it. It's so priiiiitty! Matches my Pampered Chef Cranberry Pie Stone perfectly!

And this is after. I decided to take this pic after David and I had already taken our first slices so you could see the yummy goodness inside all baked to perfection.


I highly recommend this recipe, especially for a holiday dish. The cranberries give the pie an extra tart-sweetness that is amazing. Happy baking!

P.S. THIS pie crust turned out even better than the first with a phenomenal flakiness that's quite tasty. Yum, yum!