Apple Cranberry Pie

Embellish your pie with a beautiful poinsettia flower decoration.

Ingredients

    Yield:

    PIE CRUST

    • 3 cups Pamela's All-Purpose Flour Artisan Blend (420 gr.)
    • 1 tsp salt
    • 1 TBSP brown sugar
    • pinch cayenne (optional)
    • 8 TBSP shortening, chilled and cubed
    • 8 TBSP unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
    • ⅓ cup ice water + up to 1 TBSP if necessary

    GLAZE

    • 1 egg yolk
    • 1 TBSP water

    FILLING

    • 6 cups cooked apples of choice: Fuji or Pink Lady are favorites (about 5 lbs. raw)
    • ½ tsp cinnamon
    • 2 TBSP butter, divided
    • 2 cups whole fresh cranberries (6 oz.), or frozen
    • 1 cup sugar
    • zest of 1 orange (optional)
    • 1½ TBSP Pamela's All-Purpose Flour Artisan Blend
    • ⅓ cup orange or cranberry juice
Directions

    Both Apple and Cranberry Fillings need to be cooked and cooled before pie may be assembled.

    APPLE FILLING:

    Peel, core and slice apples, then cut slices in half; pieces are about 1½” long. Put 1 TBSP butter in large heavy bottom sauté pan, and melt. Add apples and stir every few minutes to cook them evenly. You do NOT want to cook them all the way, just enough to soften the surface and they start to extrude juice. Once cooked, drain with a strainer, so apples are not sitting in juice (reserve juice for another use if desired). Spread par‐cooked apples to cool, sprinkle with cinnamon, mix, and store in airtight container in refrigerator until ready to use.

    CRANBERRY FILLING:

    Add sugar to a medium-sized, heavy bottom sauce pan. Zest orange over sugar, add orange juice, and 1½ TBSP All-Purpose Flour Artisan Blend. Whisk together and cook over medium heat until sugar melts.

    Add cranberries and stir. Cook on a low simmer until cranberries start to pop, but do not let them all pop. Remove from heat and add 1 TBSP butter, swirl to mix, and cool completely until ready to use.

    PIE CRUST:

    Pre‐heat oven to 425°.

    In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together dry ingredients. With paddle attachment, pastry blender, or fingers, cut butter and shortening into dry mixture until pea‐sized crumbs are formed. Slowly add ice water just until dough comes together (not sticky). Add 1 tsp additional water at a time if dough is too dry.

    Divide dough not quite into halves. Use the larger ‘half’ for the crust and the smaller ‘half’ for the flower. Flatten larger ‘half’ into a disk of dough (for crust) between pieces of plastic wrap or plastic wrap and parchment, and chill on sheet pan.

    Roll out disk about 1 to 2 inches larger than diameter of the pie pan, to 1/8‐inch thick. Flatten smaller ‘half’ into a rectangle of dough (for flower) between pieces of plastic wrap or plastic wrap and parchment, and chill on sheet pan. Roll out rectangle to 1/8‐inch thick.

    Put rolled dough sheets between pieces of parchment on a sheet pan and chill until ready to use.

    ASSEMBLE THE PIE:

    Remove parchment or one piece of plastic wrap. Using the plastic wrap, flip into greased pie plate. Maneuver the dough into the bottom of pan. Press the bottom down and the sides into the pie pan. Slowly release the plastic around the edge, trimming the crust with scissors, leaving about an extra ½‐inch of dough. Fold the extra dough back up onto the existing edge of dough. Use some of the trimmed dough to splice in where it seems thin, or some has fallen off. Use your fingers to smooth the inner crust at top and even out the edge all the way around. Fix crust edge by using one knuckle of one hand to press the dough between two fingers of the other hand. Repeat all the way around the dough, smoothing any rough edges or cracks. Chill prepped pie shell before proceeding (this protects the beautiful shape you just made from the inevitable bumps and scrapes from filling and adding the top crust).

    Mound 5 to 6 cups cooked apples into the chilled crust. Fill in apples on the sides where there might be holes with no filling. Keep a mound shape in the center. Lay the cranberries on top starting in the middle. Keeping the mound shape, cover the apples with the cranberries. Roll out the top crust and cut three strips about 3 inches tall. Cut the flower petals free form, each 3 inches long, down the strip. Repeat for each 3‐inch row. You should have quite a lot of petals. Cut a small square or rectangle of dough and place it in the middle of the mound.

    Using a small offset spatula, loosen the petals off the parchment or plastic wrap. Starting with the outer layer of petals, using your fingers or small offset spatula, lay the first set of petals sparsely around the outside, about 1 or 2 inches from the outside edge. Lay another layer of petals between the first layer, set in further toward the center. Lay in the last layer of petals, fitting between and bending slightly to fit between the previous layers of petals, with inside tips reaching the square of dough that you started with.

    Mix the glaze and use a very small soft brush to apply lightly all around the outer edge. Slowly and lightly, glaze most of the petals. Roll a bunch of small balls to make the center of the flower. Use the glaze to anchor the balls, massing them in the center, and using them discreetly to hide any problem areas where the petals come together in the middle. Put into the lower third of a 425° preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes, then turn down the oven to 350° until all golden and filling is bubbling, approximately 45 to 60 minutes. When the crust is golden brown, the pie is done.

Customer Reviews

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S
Sharon

How long do you bake the pie??

K
Kay

Any chance I could make this ahead, freeze it and bake the day of my party?