Cranberry Pie

Cranberry Pie

Aren’t cranberries great? And snowflakes too, actual snow flakes, not the ones that get thrown around by idiots on twitter who think they’re being funny. Cranberries may not be as sweet as many other fruits or berries, but they still make a wonderful pie. It’s a particularly tart one, even with all the sugar but, covered in snowflake pastry and served up with a dollop of cream, you’ve got a perfect dessert for sharing at a festive dinner party.

Cranberry Pie

Cranberry Pie will be my last recipe of the year, and I’m hoping to get back at things properly again in the new year. It’s been great to get back putting up content regularly again, and with some pretty big news coming up I’m hoping things will be rejuvenated and I’ll be posting recipes more often. So watch this space. In the meantime, I hope everyone has an absolutely wonderful Christmas and New Year, and that their 2018’s have been bearable.

Cranberry Pie

A tart but festive fruit pie that’s the ideal dessert for a Christmas dinner party.
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 55 minutes
Course Dessert
Servings 1 Pie

Ingredients
  

  • 500 g Shortcrust Pastry pre-made is fine
  • 5 tbsps Plain Flour
  • 1/4 tsp Salt
  • 125 ml Water
  • 325 g Fresh Cranberries
  • 4 tbsps Lemon or Orange Juice
  • 1 Pinch Cinnamon make this a good sized pinch
  • 1/2 tbsp Butter

Instructions
 

  • Butter a pie dish, then roll out the pastry to fit the dish. It should be about the thickness of a pound coin.
  • Place the pastry into the dish and trim so it’s still overhanging. It will likely shrink when baked so don’t trim off too much. Crimp the edges and place in the freezer for at least an hour.
  • Preheat oven to 220°C (200°C fan assisted) and place a baking tray in the oven.
  • In a sauce pan, combine the sugar, flour, salt and water. Bring to the boil and stir constantly until it’s thick and smooth.
  • Add the cranberries, juice and cinnamon. Cook for a further 5 minutes until it’s bubbling and the cranberries have started to pop.
  • Remove from the heat and add stir through the butter.
  • Spoon the filling into the prepared pie dish, use any left over pastry to make a lid, this could be a lattice, stars or strips. I made snowflakes to keep it Christmassy.
  • Wash the pastry with milk or egg and place onto the baking tray in the pre-heated oven.
  • Bake for 40 minutes, you may need to cover with foil after about 25-30 if it’s browning too quickly.
  • Remove when the filling has set. Allow to cool completely before serving.

Christmas Morning Maple Cranberry Cinnamon Buns

What’s the best way to kick off Christmas morning? It definitely involves a brew, maybe a stocking and probably some form of bucks fizz. But if you want to kick it up a notch, why not serve up cinnamon buns for breakfast? Maple cranberry cinnamon buns sprinkled with chopped pistachios and drizzled with an orange glaze are the perfect way to make Christmas morning even more indulgent, especially as most of the hard work can be done the day before, so they’re ready to just stick in the oven first thing.

maple cranberry cinnamon buns

This is a combination of a couple of my older recipes, it takes the maple cranberries from my Christmas pancake recipe, and the overnight cinnamon buns I made last year, then it adds an orange wash, pistachios and a glaze. The cinnamon buns are delightfully light, especially when they’re fresh, perfect to pull apart. Arranged like a Christmas tree they’re also very visually impressive, ready for hungry and excited people to devour first thing in the morning.

Do you have any Christmas morning traditions?

Christmas cinnamon buns
Orange glazed cinnamon buns

Maple Cranberry Cinnamon Buns

Soft cinnamon buns filled with maple cranberries, drizzled with orange glaze and dusted with pistachios.
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Overnight Proving 8 hours
Total Time 35 minutes
Servings 12

Ingredients
  

For the Dough

  • 235 ml warm milk not hot
  • ½ tbsp fast acting dried yeast
  • 4 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 385 g + 2-4tbsp all-purpose flour divided
  • 1 large egg room temperature
  • 1 tbsp unsalted butter melted
  • ½ tsp salt

For the filling

  • 90 g unsalted butter softened
  • 20 g granulated sugar
  • 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
  • 75 g fresh cranberries
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1 tbsp water

For the toppings

  • 2 tbsp caster sugar
  • 1 tbsp water
  • Zest of one orange
  • 150 g icing sugar
  • 1 tbsp orange juice
  • 20 g pistachios chopped

Instructions
 

  • In the bowl of an electric mixer, sprinkle the yeast into the flour. Leave for a few minutes then whisk in 65g of the flour and 2tbsp sugar until combined. Cover with cling film and leave to rise at room temperature for 35-40minutes so it puffs up.
  • Whisk in the remaining sugar, egg, melted butter and salt.
  • Using a dough hook attachment, set to low and add in 320g of flour, 60g at a time, making sure the flour has incorporated well after each addition. Add flour a tablespoon at a time after this until the dough is no longer sticking to a fingertip. Set to knead for 10 minutes. It should be coming away from the sides of the bowl at the end.
  • Cover and allow to rise at room temperature for 2 hours (1 hour in an oven set to 35°C), until it’s doubled in size.
  • In a small saucepan heat the water with the cranberries for a few minutes until the water starts cooking off. Add the maple and cinnamon and cook over a low heat until it starts turning syrupy. 
  • Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out the dough into a 17″x10″ rectangle. Spread the softened butter over the top.
  • Whisk together the cinnamon and sugar, sprinkle the buttered dough generously all over. You’ll use all of it. Then, sprinkle over the prepared cranberries as evenly as you can.
  • Roll tightly, away from you along one of the long edges, to make a long a log.
  • Pinch the very ends together slightly, then cut them off to neaten. Divide into 12 even cinnamon rolls.
  • Place them cut side down in a prepared tin, spacing evenly to allow some space to rise, or else in a 2, 4, 3, 2, 1 formation to form a Christmas tree.
  • Cover with cling film and place in the fridge for at least 7 hours. Overnight is preferable.
  • Remove from the fridge an hour before you want to cook them so they can return to room temperature. They’ll be puffy.
  • Pre-heat the oven to 180°C(160°C fan assisted).
  • Remove the cling film, transfer to the center of the pre-heated oven and bake for 22-24 minutes, until the tops have gone golden.
  • While they are baking, combine the caster sugar in a small pan with the water and orange zest, whisking until the sugar has dissolved. Heat until it just starts to boil.
  • As soon as you’ve removed the cinnamon buns from the oven, brush them generously with the sugar syrup.
  • Leave to cool for a few more minutes before sprinkling with the pistachios.
  • Whisk the orange juice with the icing sugar until you’ve got a thick icing that should dribble off the whisk when lifted. Transfer to a piping bag and pipe over the buns in whatever pattern you desire.
  • Best served fresh.

Chocolate Profiteroles (W/ Optional Crème Patissiere)

Chocolate Profiteroles with Creme Pat

Hi there, I know I’ve been quiet this year, but you didn’t think I’d stay quiet over the Christmas period, right? Christmas is the best time for baking; when everyone’s having get-togethers, bringing in biscuit boxes to work or just generally hiding from the cold dark evenings. I’ve still been baking, and I’ve even managed to photograph some of the things I’ve baked. This mean I’ve managed to get a bit of a backlog of recipes to post, and what better time than Christmas to post them? I’ve been trying to push myself with my baking recently, teaching myself new things, or baking things that are outside of my usual comfort zone. One of the things that’s been on my list for years, that I’ve never plucked up the courage to try and make, has been choux pastry. It’s always been intimidating, from bake off to recipe books to many places talk about how hard it is to get right. After a few mistakes with my baking in recent months I was even more worried, but decided that now was the time to try and make some simple Profiteroles, and that it was also time to try my hand at making Crème Patissiere for the first time too. Read more

Nutella Filled Cinnamon Sugar Muffins

Christmas is in 9 days. I repeat, Christmas is in 9 days. Where the hell has the time gone? I am running out! With a trip to Scotland booked in from December 21st to December 27th, I am very limited with the time I have left, to shop, bake, see the Hobbit and generally exist along the way. However, it’s time for my second Festive Baking recipe. And you guessed it, it involves cinnamon. Although what you may not have  expected was Nutella. And what you may also not have expected, with it being festive, is that they are muffins. Cinnamon topped and Nutella stuffed Muffins, yum. What makes these different as well is that they use a slightly different flour to the usual plain white. I used a plain wholemeal, which made them slightly heavier but also works great on a cold night and compliments the Nutella and Cinnamon really well.

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The recipe only makes a few, 9 to be exact, but can be very easily doubled (and will be later this week when I am baking for a party). Speaking of the party, I’m also baking a couple of my Cranberry and Orange loaves, as well as some Reindeer pretzel cookies! It is the day I finish work for Christmas, so it’s safe to say that I’ll undoubtedly be a little worse for wear before it’s done. I’m also starting to plan in bakes for when I’m up at my parent’s cottage on Mull next week.

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Nutella Filled Cinnamon Sugar Muffins
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Serves: 9
Ingredients
  • 5 Tablespoons or 75g unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
  • 100g granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 120ml milk
  • 190g plain wholemeal flour
  • 1 and ½ teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 8 teaspoons Nutella
  • Cinnamon-Sugar Topping
  • 50g granulated sugar
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 45g unsalted butter
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 220°C(200°C fan) and grease a muffin tin (I used butter but a spray will work just as well).
  2. Cream together the sugar and the butter, on a medium speed.
  3. Mix in the egg, beating well, before mixing in the vanilla and the milk.
  4. Gently mix in the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. When mixing these together be careful not to over-mix them. Do it until only just combined to avoid a heavy mixture.
  5. Divide up the batter into the muffin tins. Do this by putting one heaped tablespoon in to each hole. On top of each of these, place a dollop of Nutella. Cover with the remaining batter.
  6. Bake at 220°C for 5 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 175°C(155°C fan) and bake for a further 13-17 minutes
  7. Allow the muffins to cool for about 5 minutes.
  8. While they are cooling, mix together the sugar and cinnamon. Melt the butter (either in a microwave or a pan).
  9. Take a muffin, dip the top in to the butter and then dip it in to the sugar mix to top it.
  10. Place upright on a cooling rack until they are cooled properly.

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