Cranberry Pie
1½ cups cranberries 1/2 cup water ¾ cup sugar Put ingredients in saucepan in order given, and cook ten minutes; cool, and bake in one crust, with a rim, and strips across the top.
The ingredient list has been mangled in transcription, with the amounts split above and below the method, so read it as a single list before starting. Otherwise this is a straightforward cooked-filling lattice pie that needs a temperature and a time supplied.
- Reading the ingredientsThe cranberry filling proper is 1½ cups cranberries, ½ cup water and sugar, the sugar printed as "3 ¼ cup", which is most plausibly a mangled ¾ cup. The "1 cup currants 1 cup sugar" printed after the method may belong to this filling or may be the start of the next recipe on the page; the text does not settle it. If you include the currants, add their sugar with them and taste as it cooks.
- What kind of currantsIf the currants belong to this filling, they are more likely dried Zante currants, the small black raisins, than fresh redcurrants, though the text does not say which. Rinse and pick them over before use.
- Ten minutes is enoughCranberries burst and release pectin within a few minutes of boiling. Ten minutes on a gentle simmer gets you a thick, jammy mass; push it further and the skins disintegrate and the filling turns to paste.
- Cool it properlyThe instruction to cool is the hinge. Warm filling melts the fat in the bottom crust before it can set, and you get a soggy base and lattice strips that slump. Chill it to room temperature or colder.
- "One crust, with a rim, and strips across the top"A single bottom crust, a built-up edge of pastry to hold the filling, and a lattice of strips over the surface. No top sheet, so the filling reduces further in the oven.
- OvenNone is given. A hot oven, around 425F for 20 to 25 minutes until the lattice is set and browned, is a reasonable modern default for a filling that is already cooked; drop to 375F for any remaining time if the edges are colouring too fast.
- YieldRoughly 2 cups of filling from the cranberries alone, more if the currants are included; enough for a shallow single-crust pie. For a deep 9-inch dish, increase the fruit.
Cranberry pie is a New England household pie of the plainest kind, and it reflects a Massachusetts pantry rather than any grand tradition: the Cape Cod bogs were commercially cultivated from the mid-nineteenth century onward, and barrelled cranberries kept for months in a cold cellar, which made them one of the few fruits available for baking in late winter. The dried currants here do the same work as the raisins in a mock cherry pie, softening the acidity and adding body so less sugar is needed. Cooking the filling before it goes into the shell was standard practice for very juicy fruit and explains the open lattice, which lets steam escape from a mixture that has already given up most of its liquid on the stove.