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Mock Cherry Pie (Chop fine one cup cranberries)
Chop fine one cup cranberries, one-half cup seeded raisins; add three-fourths of a cup of sugar, one teaspoon of vanilla, piece of butter size of walnut, and one-half cup of hot water. Stir thoroughly together and fill pie plate, then sift two teaspoons of flour over the top, cover with crust and bake.
— Mrs. George S. Harding
A two-crust pie built from pantry fruit, written in the shorthand of a cook who assumed you already had pastry on hand. A few of the vaguer measures are worth pinning down before you start.
- Butter the size of a walnutRoughly one tablespoon, or about half an ounce. Shelled walnut, not in the shell.
- You need two crustsThe recipe says "fill pie plate" and then "cover with crust," which means a bottom shell is assumed. Line the plate, fill, then top and crimp; cut vents. No plate size is given, and the quantity of filling suits a small or shallow plate rather than a deep 9-inch one.
- The flour matters more than it looksTwo teaspoons sifted over the filling is the only thickener, and cranberries throw a lot of juice. Toss it through the fruit rather than leaving it as a dry layer on top, or the filling will be loose under a floury cap.
- Chop, do not puréeA food processor will turn cranberries and raisins to slurry in seconds. Pulse briefly, or chop by hand, so the fruit keeps some texture — that is what makes it read as cherry.
- OvenThe original gives none. Bake at 425F for the first 15 minutes to set the bottom crust, then 350F for another 30 to 35, until the filling bubbles through the vents.
- SweetnessThree-quarters of a cup of sugar to a cup of raw cranberries may read tart to some modern palates, though the half cup of raisins adds sweetness of its own. Taste and adjust if your raisins are dry rather than plump.
- YieldOne pie, six to eight slices, depending on the plate you use; the recipe does not specify a size. Cool at least two hours before cutting or the filling will run.
Mock cherry pie belongs to a long American tradition of "mock" dishes — mock turtle soup, mock apple pie, mock duck — in which a cheap or available ingredient stands in for one that is out of season, out of reach, or out of the household budget. Cranberries and raisins together give the color, the tartness and the fleck of dark fruit that a sour cherry pie would, and both keep well: cranberries store for weeks in a cold pantry and raisins indefinitely, which made this a winter pie in a region where fresh cherries were a brief summer event.