Cranberry Custard Pie for Christmas Dinner 2023

It was only the three of us for Christmas this year, and I didn't want to make another Yule Log.  It seemed like the perfect time to try something new and I've had a Cranberry Custard Pie on my bucket list for a while. There's no time like the present!

I chose this recipe from Everyday Pie.  I liked that it didn't require Jell-o, and I was intrigued by the ginger crust. As it turned out, this pie was disappointing and I'm glad I didn't bring it to a family gathering as it would have caused me some embarrassment.

First of all the crust, which turned out underdone, tough and too thick. This recipe calls for 1 and 1/2 cups of flour and 1 stick of butter; whereas the other crust recipes I've used and which have turned out well call for 1 and a 1/4 cups of flour.  So there may have been too much flour in the crust.  It called for crystallized ginger and I didn't want to buy a specialty ingredient, so I put some ginger chewy candy in the food processor with a bit of confectioners sugar til I got some form gingery powder.  And I don't think that was the problem.  The recipe calls for 1/3 cup of milk or water, more than the 1/4 cup that other recipes call for, but since there's more flour here I don't think that was the problem either.  I used milk, just to try, and with the added fat it should have softened things and in fact after sitting overnight in the refrigerator the crust was still soft to the touch.  And the crust was a dream to roll out, rolled out easily and quickly and without cracking.  But the other problem could have been that it says to make it in the food processor and pulse until it comes together in a ball around the blades. And maybe that's just too rough on the crust, as you could barely distinguish any of the pieces of butter, which were cut small to begin with.  Also, it says to roll out the crust to 11" for a 9" pie plate.  I was surprised at how thick it still was at that point, and I rolled it out to 11.5 inches.  But I should have rolled it out even thinner, I think, because it was definitely too thick.  Usually I'll roll out a pie crust to a 12" diameter and if I ever try this again that's what I'll do here too.  Twelve inch diameter or until it looks thin enough to me, whichever comes first.

The crust baked up super quick, 20 minutes at 375F with beans and then dried up immediately after only 5 additional minutes. But given it was partly underdone, maybe it should have stayed in the oven 10 additional minutes instead of just 5.  It would have been hard to tell by eye, because the ginger in the crust gave it a brown color even when raw.  But between it being thick, and a short time in the oven after the beans were removed, I think that's what happened. 

The filling is super easy to make, and the pie was in the oven for 37 minutes. I'm always anxious with about when to take custard pies out of the oven, even though I've made a number of them. In this instance, I followed the directions to the letter, as I did throughout the recipe. The edges of the custard were puffy enough and it was set 2" in from the edges, and the rest of the pie was still wobbly.  But to my horror, even though it held its shape when cut, it did so just barely and it didn't have the right "custardy" mouth feel because it was too loose.  It was more pleasant to eat with a bit of whipped cream and I wish I'd used more of that for garnish.

The taste was tangy, but it didn't particularly taste of sugared cranberries.  We'll see after it's been overnight in the fridge, but I wouldn't call this recipe a winner or a keeper.

There's another pie I made from Everyday Pie, a Mascarpone Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving a few years ago.  I recall that it was near to impossible to get the Mascarpone swirls that first attracted me to the recipe, and the addition of the cheese didn't really enhance the pie.  Instead it just made it fattier.

So as far as I'm concerned, Everyday Pie is 0 for 2 with me and I may not trust her to make one of her recipes again.