Cranberry Meringue Pie
Full disclosure - I'm not too fond of those blog posts with your whole life story and three ad breaks before you get to the recipe. You won't get that here.
Long story short — one paragraph of chatting, then the recipe and links to buy baking supplies I find helpful at the bottom. Okay, let's do it.
I love pie. Specifically, I like all kinds of pie. But my favorite pie is lemon meringue. There needs to be a better pie for Thanksgiving, though. Thanksgiving. What pie do you think of after Pumpkin? Do you choose pecan? I do not love pecan pie. It's never been my favorite. How about apple? Basic. But what about a new kind of pie that blends the season's flavors with a pie I already love? Cranberry meringue.
I got the inspiration for this from the November Martha Stewart Living cover, but that recipe needed a lot of tweaking. This recipe is my version, and it turned out great. I gave it a few test runs, and it will appear at our Thanksgiving feast.
Ingredients
Crust
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
6 tbsps melted butter
Cranberry Filling
12 ounces cranberries, fresh or frozen. Thaw if frozen.
2/3 cup orange juice
2 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
4 tbsps butter
Meringue
3 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
Put it Together
Mix melted butter and graham cracker crumbs. Press into a nine-inch pie or tart pan and bake at 350F for 15 minutes. Refrigerate. Add the salt, cranberries, and orange juice to a medium saucepan. Cook on medium for 8-10 minutes until all the berries have burst and are soft. You're waiting for it to resemble cranberry sauce. Afterward, strain the mixture using a fine-mesh sieve, removing all the pulp.
Return the pulp-less cranberry to the saucepan. Add the sugar, and create a cornstarch slurry using 1/4 cup of water. Whisk in butter and stir until melted.
In a separate bowl, whisk egg yolks. Slowly - very slowly - add in the heated cranberry mixture. If you don't do it slowly, you'll get scrambled eggs in your pie! Return to the saucepan and continue to whisk on low heat until thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. Don't worry - it will reduce more.
Strain through your mesh sieve again into the refrigerated pie crust. Stick the whole thing in the fridge. It can stay in there for up to a week, covered.
But the meringue!
When it's time to eat the pie, you can add the meringue. The meringue -does not- keep well. It gets gummy and gluey, so this is a day-of thing. Mix the egg yolks and sugar in the top of a double boiler. Heat over simmering (but not boiling) water. Dissolve the sugar and wait until the mixture is hot and no longer grainy. Pour all the hot sugar-egg into a stand mixer and whisk on high until the bowl is cold and the eggs have formed stiff peaks.
Add to a piping bag and decorate as you'd like!
This pie is both delicious and beautiful. I hope you love it as much as I do!