Cranberry-Ginger Nantucket Pie

An elegant pie-style cake that is easy to make for Thanksgiving.

My quest is to keep you and me from freaking out about cooking Thanksgiving dinner.

As my mother would remind me every year: “It’s only dinner. Don’t worry.” My mother was a person who didn’t love to cook but did love to worry, so hers is a statement worth heeding.

Over the course of the next few days, I plan to fill your inbox with various and sundry easy recipes, sweet and savory. There will be little-fuss air-fryer apps, no-fuss snacks and of course, pies and desserts.

This here recipe is a true American classic. My all-time favorite food writer Laurie Colwin gave it a boost in popularity in a 1992 edition of Gourmet magazine, but versions of it can be found all over the internet. Traditionally, it’s made with an almond-extract flavored cake batter. I fancied up the recipe and filled the cake batter with pecans, freshly grated ginger and orange zest and topped it off with a sprinkle of sugar and bits of crystallized ginger.

Now you may be a tad confuzzled (as my son would say) about why I keep referring to cake batter, when the recipe is supposed to be for a Nantucket pie. I consulted the Oracle of the Cranberry Bog about this strangeness and didn’t get a response. I can only surmise then that in a country where we have fruit desserts called ‘slumps,” “grunts,” “cobblers,” and “pandowdies,” it’s not so weird to have a cake called a pie.

Names aside: This is a simple pie-cake to make and can be baked in advance and reheated before eating. It eats well with vanilla (or ginger if you can find it) ice cream, but I suspect I didn’t need to tell you that.

Here’s a pdf version you can easily print out!

Nantucket Cranberry Ginger And Orange Pie Printable!

1.57MB ∙ PDF file

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Download

Nantucket Cranberry Ginger and Orange Pie, um, Cake

What You’ll Need:

For the cake topping:

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/2 ounce crystallized ginger

For the cake batter:

6 ounces butter, melted

1/2 cup pecans

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 heaping tablespoon freshly grated ginger

zest of two oranges (about 1 packed teaspoon; my oranges were small)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

For the fruit layer:

3 cups cranberries

3/4 cup sugar

What You’ll Do:

If you follow my steps, you can use your food processor to chop without rinsing the bowl. Please read the recipe through once before you get cooking.

1. Turn the oven to 350 degrees F/180 centigrade.

2. Generously butter a 9-inch deep-dish pie dish.

3. Melt the butter in the microwave in a large microwave-safe bowl, or gently on the stove. Set aside.

4. Make the topping: In the bowl of a food processor with the blade attachment, add the 2 tablespoons sugar and the crystallized ginger, and grind until the ginger resembles little nubbins. Pour it into a bowl and set aside.

5. Add the pecans to the bowl of the food processor and pulse 6 or 7 times until the nuts are pea-sized or smaller. Add the pecans to the bowl with melted butter.

6. Add the cranberries and 1/2 cup sugar to the bowl of the food processor, and pulse about 10 times until the cranberries are chopped up, but stop before they turn to mush. Scrape the mixture into the buttered pie pan and spread evenly.

7. To to the bowl with the melted butter and chopped pecans, add the flour, 1 cup sugar, baking soda, salt, vanilla, grated ginger and orange zest and stir it together by hand. Add the 2 eggs and mix until just blended.

8. Spoon the mixture over the cranberries and then spread evenly.

9. Bake for 30 minutes, then sprinkle the crystallized ginger-sugar mixture evenly over the top of the pie-cake.

10. Continue to bake for about 10 minutes longer until a toothpick stuck into the center of the pie comes out clean. If the cake is browning too quickly, place a piece of foil loosely over the top of the pie and lower the temperature to 325 degrees F.

11. Let cool. Serve warm with creme fraiche, ice cream, whipped cream or whatever you please.

    Of course: You can leave out the nuts. You can add more grated ginger. You can call this a cake…but if Laurie Colwin called it a pie, I’m calling it a pie.

    Also: If you haven’t read any Laurie Colwin lately, you should.

    

    Let me also add a very warm welcome to all my new subscribers. I’m so glad to have you here. And, of course, a continued thanks to all of you who continue to support my work. It means the world to me.

    Question: What is the one dish you must have on Thanksgiving? For me, it’s stuffing. Preferably a corn bread and sausage stuffing that is garlickier than you’d expect.

    Tell a friend! Buy a friend a gift subscription as a hostess gift for Thanksgiving!