Cranberry Pear New Years Day Pie

A seasonal pie with surprising and very topical sound effects.

Fireworks in the oven

Stewing pears and cranberries are the seasonal contents of this pie. I felt this would really make a refreshing fruity addition to the traditional “oliebollen” – fried dough balls – that we are having aroud New Year’s Eve. But to my surprise, this pie was more topical than I bargained for! While baking in the oven, the cranberries cooked and split with discreet popping noises. The pie tastes great, and the oven came to no harm – luckily, the exploding cranberries kept themselves inside the shell.

recipe: Cranberry Pear New Years Day Pie

This is for a 23 cm round pie tin.

pastry shell:

140 g margarine
140 g flour
bit of salt
sachet vanilla sugar
1 egg yolk (keep egg white for edge)

filling:

6 stewing pears
250 g cranberries
200 g sugar (or: 125 ml maple syrup)
40 g flour
1 teasp (dried) grated orange peel
2 teasp cinnamon
15 g margarine (a few dollops)

topping:

60 g flour
60 g pecans
60 g margarine
30 g brown sugar
1 teasp cinnamon

Method

First, make the pastry: knead the pastry ingredients into a dough. Roll this into a thin circle, cover a prepared (baking paper) pie tin with it.
Peel and cut the pears in 4, then cut the pieces into two, or into about cranberry-sized chunks. Combine sugar, flour, orange peel, and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Add pears and cranberries, gently toss to coat with the dry ingredients. Fill the prepared pie shell with this mixture. Dot the filling with a few licks of butter.
Work the topping ingredients into a crumbly mixture. Sprinkle the crumbs onto the filling. Use the left-over egg-white to brush the crust where it is still open to the air.

Baking it

Bake in a pre-heated oven, 200°C, for about 20 minutes, then lower heat to 170°C and bake for about 30 minutes more, until crust is golden. Leave to cool before cutting into it.