As a sometimes impulse shopper, cranberries call me from their seasonal spot on the grocery shelf usually in mid-December. This year I answered the call.
But, because cranberries grow up in a bog you don’t just pop them into your mouth like candy or popcorn. They apparently need to be baked to eliminate the bog effect.
And unless you act decisively, the bag of berries ends up in the back of the ‘frig until Easter.
Not this year.
Visions of a cranberry-based pie danced in my head as I held the two-cup bag of Michigan bog boys.
Most – make that all – cranberry pie recipes I found require apples. Not being an A student at peeling apples, I searched the recipe books but found no alternatives.
However, deep in recesses of the freeze sat a 2015 box of rock solid frozen peaches.
Why not switch apples with peaches? I did. I’m happy with the results.
Thus, I offer viewers the Icon Cranberry Faux Apple Pie. It’s pretty simple to create.
Either purchase a pie filling or make one yourself – it’s your call.
Once that decision is made, you’ll need:
Filling
2 cups cranberries
2 cups peaches (preferable from the back of your freezer, at least 2 seasons past)
½ cup sugar
½ cup wheat flour
Mix ingredients and spread into the piecrust.
Topping – here’s where it gets creative.
You may use our suggested topping or go it alone
We used:
½ cup wheat flour
¼ cup sugar in the raw (cane sugar)
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ cup unsalted butter, sliced thin
Mix the topping ingredients into crumbs and sprinkle on top of the pie. If not careful your mix get soupy, like mine did. Don’t worry. It’s okay.
Bake for 30 minutes at 400 degrees. Then turn oven to 375, turn pie so back faces oven front and bake for 30 more minutes.
When you take pie from oven it appears bubbly. No problem. Cool the pie and dive in. We served our pie with coffee and the combo was excellent.
