My First 1st Prize-Winning Recipe!

Cranberry-Orange Crumb Tart won 1st prize in Taste of Home magazine’s Pies & Tarts recipe contest last year.  (Yeah, okay, so I’ve been lax in creating a website for this info.)

Now, just a couple of months ago, the same recipe has been reprinted in one of Taste of Home‘s actual cookbooks — in their “Most Requested Recipes” no less. Woohoo!

The Recipe

(As seen in Taste of Home “Most Requested Recipes 2015,” p.178)

Ingredients:

Topping & Crust

•  2 c. crushed cinnamon graham crackers (about 14 crackers), divided
• 1/2 c. sugar, divided
• 6 Tbsps. melted butter
• 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
• 1/4 c. packed brown sugar
• 1/4 c.cold butter, cubed

Filling

• 1 large navel orange
• 1 c. sugar
• 3 Tbsps. quick cooking-tapioca
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp.ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground allspice
• 4 c. fresh cranberries (or frozen and thawed)
• 2 Tbsps. good brandy, bourbon, or cognac (or cranberry juice instead)

Steps:

Crust

1. Preheat oven to 375° Fahrenheit.
2. In a small bowl, mix 1¾ ‘s c. crushed graham crackers with 1/4 c. sugar.
3. Stir in melted butter until it looks like wet sand.
4. Press mixture into the bottom and sides of an 11-inch tart pan.
5. Bake for 5-8 minutes until edges are lightly brown.
6. Cool on a wire rack.

Filling

1. Raise oven temp. to 400° Fahrenheit.
2. Finely grate 1 Tbsp. of zest from the orange’s peel.
3. Supreme the peel off of the orange:
   • Cut a small slice of peel off each end to give the orange a flat bottom and top.
   • Standing the orange on one flat end, cut/peel the remaining peel, pith, and outer membrane from the whole of the orange.
4. Holding the orange over a bowl to keep the juice, continue to supreme the orange by cutting the sections out from between the connective membranes.  (It’s ok if the orange pieces get mangled; they’re going in the pie filling.)
5. Squeeze any remaining membrane and pulp to reserve the orange juice.
6. In a large mixing bowl or pan, mix cranberries, orange sections, orange zest, orange juice, alcohol or cranberry juice, tapioca, spices, and last 1 c. of sugar.  (Mix all filling ingredients except baking soda.)
7. Let filling mixture stand 15 minutes.

** Step 8 was added by Taste of Home to make the cranberries pop before baking.  If the cranberries are good and ripe, and you mix all the filling mixture together, the acid in the juice and alcohol combined with the sugar should cause the mixture to macerate; you shouldn’t need step 8 to make the cranberries pop while baking.  But if it’s a concern or you don’t use alcohol, going ahead and add step 8.

8.  Stirring constantly, bring fruit mixture to a full boil on the stove and cook stirring constantly until the cranberries pop; then remove from heat.

9. Stir in 1/4 tsp. baking soda and pour the mixture into the crust.  (If you completed step 8, sprinkle the topping over the top and stop baking after step 10, directly below.)  (I know, I know, but your amps go to 11.)

10. Bake for 15-20 minutes (or until you hear the cranberries start to pop).

Topping

Make the topping while the pie is starting to bake.  This next part can be done in a food processor or in a small bowl.

1. Mix flour, brown sugar, remaining white sugar and the rest of the graham crackers.
2. Cut in cold butter with knives or pulse with food processor until it obtains a crumbly consistency.
3. Refrigerate crumb mixture if needed until ready to top on the pie.
4. Once the cranberries have started to pop in the oven, remove the pie from the oven briefly.
5. Spoon the crumble over the top and bake for another 15-20 minutes, until the crumble starts to brown.
6. Remove from the oven and let cool completely.