Baking An Apple Cranberry Pie Outdoors Is The Best
With harvest season almost to a close, I had a bag of fresh cranberries and couldn’t figure out what to make with it. So I looked at my dutch oven
It was a nice cold November morning, so the additional challenge f keeping the dutch oven nice and warm to prepare the crust and filling would be interested. That’s what I love about cooking outdoors with a dutch oven and charcoal.
Overall this was a fast dish to create about an hour in total as compared to 30 minutes with a standard oven. I did make this pie previously in the oven to see how it came out with the pie plate.
Speaking of pie plate, my stoneware pie plate that I got while visiting PEI Stoneware is working out very nicely. I recommend checking them out http://www.islandstoneware.ca/our-retailers
Ok, this pie is pretty simple, we just need the following items:
- Pillsbury pie crust (2 crusts)
- 4 to 5 apples
- squeezed juice from 1 lemon
- 1 cup of cranberries (fresh or frozen)
- 1/2 cup packed light brown or cane sugar
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 4 chunks of butter (table spoon size)
A photo posted by Jim Cyr (@thecyr) on
This should all fit in a standard pie plate (9 inches). Depending on the size of the apples, you *might* have extra filling.
Take a pie crust and place it in the pie plate and bake it in the dutch oven for about 15 min. I used rolled up aluminium foil to make a trivet so that the pie plate was about 3/4 inch above the surface of the dutch oven.
While that is happening, cut up the apples and mix in a bowl with the cranberries, squeeze the lemon and add the dry ingredients.
Remove the dutch oven from the heat and put the filling into the pie. I didn’t bother to remove the pie plate from the dutch oven.
Put to cover back on and place the dutch oven back on the coals and put a bunch on top. We’re aiming for 375F but I’m using hard wood charcoal, so had to estimate how much that would be as compared to using briquets.
Give that a good 20-30 minutes until the filling starts to reduce and bubble. Rotate the dutch oven often to make sure you get uniform heat distribution.
Remove from heat, lift cover and place the chunks of butter & second pie crust on top. Decorate as needed, then back on the coals. We want to have it around 425F so that the crust can get a nice golden color. That might take more than 15 min depending on how hot you get the dutch oven.
Once done, remove from dutch oven and let it cool. The pie should taste great with the sweetness of the apples and tartness from the cranberries. The added flavour from the charcoal just adds to it.
This pie is a nice treat while at camp or cottage in the fall.