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Cranberry Tart
Make as for Gooseberry Tart, which will give variations. Also add a cup of raisins sometimes for a change.
This is a cross-reference rather than a standalone recipe: it assumes you have the book's gooseberry tart in front of you and are simply swapping the fruit. That means every quantity has to come from the base recipe, and cranberries behave differently enough from gooseberries that a few adjustments are needed.
- The hinge: sugarCranberries are drier and, depending on the berries, at least as sharp as gooseberries, so the base recipe's sugar may need raising. A modern cranberry filling generally takes something like 3/4 to 1 cup sugar per pound of berries; taste the sweetened fruit before it goes under the crust.
- What "tart" means hereIn American usage a fruit 'tart' often meant a deep dish of sweetened fruit with a pastry lid, or a double-crust pie, rather than the shallow open French tart. Follow whatever form the gooseberry recipe uses.
- No quantities are givenThe original supplies none at all beyond the cup of raisins. Anyone working from this page alone needs a modern cranberry pie recipe for proportions; a 9-inch pie takes about 4 cups of berries.
- ThickeningCranberries are high in pectin and will set up more readily than many fruits once the sugar is dissolved and the juice has bubbled, so you may want less flour or cornstarch than a gooseberry filling would take. Too much thickener makes the filling pasty.
- OvenIf the base recipe calls for a "quick oven," that is usually read as roughly 400-425F to set the pastry, dropping to about 375F once it colours; a "moderate oven" is usually read as about 350-375F. Neither term appears on this page.
- The raisinsThey want a few minutes' soak in hot water or they will draw moisture from the filling and stay leathery. Chopping them coarsely spreads the sweetness more evenly against the cranberries.
- Whole berries burstUncooked cranberries split in the oven and throw juice, so vent the top crust generously and bake on a sheet pan. Precooking the fruit briefly with the sugar gives a more controlled filling.
Cranberry tarts and pies are common in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American cookery, helped by the fact that the fruit keeps unusually well without processing: cranberries were shipped in barrels from the Cape Cod and New Jersey bogs and could be held for weeks or months in a cool cellar, which is part of why they appear in midwinter baking long after the gooseberry season has passed. The instruction to "make as for Gooseberry Tart" reflects how such books were often organised — a single method for a tart or pie, then a run of fruits slotted into it, with the reader expected to judge the sugar. Raisins turn up in fillings of this kind as both sweetener and bulk, and the cranberry-raisin pairing survives in cranberry mincemeat and in relishes served alongside roast meat.