Raisin-Cranberry Pie (Mock Cherry)

A two-crust winter pie built on the one fruit that keeps until Christmas. The instructions assume a cook who already knows how to line a plate with pastry, so the gaps are all in the pastry and the oven.

• "Paste" means pie crustYou need enough plain pastry to line and cover a pie plate, on the order of 2 cups flour's worth for a double crust. Nothing in the ingredient list above covers it, and no plate size is given.
• Moderate oven350F. For a fruit pie with a raw bottom crust it is worth starting at 425F for the first 10 minutes to set the base, then dropping to 350F.
• Thirty minutes is optimisticA filled double-crust pie of this size usually wants 40 to 50 minutes total, until the top is browned and juice bubbles through the vents. Judge by the bubbling, not the clock.
• Seeded raisinsRaisins of the period commonly still had seeds, which had to be picked out; "seeded" here means seeds removed, not seedless. Any seedless raisin works; chopping them coarsely still matters, since whole ones stay leathery in a short bake.
• The filling is dry as writtenSugar, flour and 1 1/2 cups of fruit make a stiff mixture. Cranberries throw off a good deal of juice as they burst; a spoonful or two of water can help the flour thicken evenly if the mixture looks powdery.
• ShorteningLard or vegetable shortening. The recipe has it mixed in with the rest; some cooks instead dot it over the fruit in pieces before the top crust goes on. Butter does the same job with better flavour.
• SweetnessThe note about more sugar is not idle. Cranberries are aggressively tart, and 3/4 cup for a full pie reads lean by modern palates; a cup is closer to what most people expect.
• YieldOne pie, six to eight servings. It cuts far more cleanly after several hours' cooling.