Silky Smooth Cranberry Gingersnap Pie - The Honest Crumb (2024)

My mom and I love gingersnaps! She buys a large tin from World Market around the holidays. You can order our favorite on Amazon here. I go crazy for these plain, but one year started spreading a little jam on them and…OMG I was hooked. They are also great with a cup of hot tea or chai latte. I have decreased my gluten intake quite a bit the past 5-10 years, but still enjoy them on occasion. Fortunately, I have found some great gluten-free gingersnaps that still hit the spot.

I was brainstorming Thanksgiving desserts and wanted to find a way to turn my love for gingersnaps and jam into a pie. I came across two different recipes, one pie version from Sue at View From the Great Big Island, and a tart from New York Times cooking section. These are great sources for recipes, and highly recommend checking them out! I took bits and pieces from both recipes, as well as my own ideas, to create one fabulous dessert! The pie does have a mild tart taste, which I personally love and wanted, but is balanced out nicely by the sugar and orange juice. It is a great light and refreshing dessert to have at the end of your Thanksgiving feast. Next time I think I may experiment by adding a little hibiscus powder to make this even more fun and bright :). This may be considered a pie or tart, and will bake up nicely in a tart shell or pie pan. I garnished mine with chopped cranberries, pepitas, candied pecans and mint. I wanted the garnish to stay light because I feel the filling is so beautiful itself.

Ingredients

Gingersnap Crust
• 5 ounces gingersnap cookies, gluten-free*
• 1 cup walnut pieces, roasted and unsalted
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon grass-fed butter, melted and cooled
• dash of table salt, ~1/8 teaspoon

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place gingersnap cookie pieces in a food processor fitted with standard blade. Process until cookies reach a fine crumb. Add 1 cup of walnuts and process again until same fine crumb consistency is reached. Add 1 tablespoon of melted butter and process until mixture holds together.**
2. Transfer 1/2 of crust mixture to standard pie 9 inch pie pan. Start by packing the mixture around the edges/crust area. Push the mixture against the sides of pan while also pushing down from the top to compact the mixture. Finish by filling the middle with the crumb mix. I find it easier to go about the crust this way.
3. Bake crust for 10-15 minutes in preheated oven until golden brown and no longer soft. Watch carefully to ensure it does not burn.
4. Place cranberries, sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and continue to cook over a light simmer until cranberries burst and soften, about 15 minutes. The mixture should thicken quite a bit.
5. Take cranberry mixture off heat and cool for 10 minutes.
6. Place mixture into a high-power blender such as Vita-mix, a standard blender or food processor. Process until smooth, ~ 1 minute.* Clean your saucepan because you will use it again shortly.*
7. Transfer puree back to saucepan and whisk in salt, vanilla bean or paste, eggs and egg yolks. Whisk until smooth and well combined.Place over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is thickened. This takes about 10-15 minutes. The mixture requires your full attention and constant stirring, or may burn. When done the mixture should hold its shape if you run your finger through it down the back of a wooden spoon; it should not run back together.
8. Take mixture off the heat. Place a large, fine mesh strainer over a large heat safe bowl. Pour mixture into strainer and begin stirring to help push mixture through. Continue until all the liquid is pushed through. Discard any small or large pieces remaining in strainer.
9. Add 4 tablespoons of butter, one at a time, until melted. Stir in gently to combine. This will help stop the cooking process.
10. Pour the cranberry curd mixture into the baked gingersnap crust and smooth out with a spatula. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes to set the curd.
11. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Place in fridge and chill for 2-3 hours.
12. Remove and decorate to your liking or eat as it is! It is beautiful by itself :).

Recipe Notes

• For the gingersnap cookies, I measured by broken cookie pieces after I had removed the larger pieces of candied ginger…therefore my 5 ounces is straight cookie without candied ginger pieces. It will not be possible to remove every little piece, which is more than okay. Simply remove any large obvious pieces. I love ginger, therefore actually like the candied ginger spread throughout the crust. Simply wanted to clarify as I thought this may be confusing :).
• Make sure your orange juice is pulp free if using bottled OJ.
• The Tate ginger cookies are a buttery cookie. Due to this I did not need to add much butter at all to the crust mixture. You will notice the mixture is already fairly moist after processing the walnuts and cookies. The original recipe calls for 4-6 table spoons of butter, but I absolutely did not need that due to the cookies I used. If using the two alternative standard gingersnap cookies I linked above use 3-4 tablespoons of melted butter, unsalted.
• One standard vanilla bean pod, ~ 2 inches long, is equivalent to 3 teaspoons of vanilla bean paste. Therefore, half of one pod would work well if you do not have vanilla bean paste. Technically this is 1.5 teaspoons vanilla, but a little extra vanilla is never a bad thing if you ask me. You may leave the vanilla out all together as well.
•You do not have to use a Vita-mix. Any blender you have will work great; the Vita-mix will simply make it silkier. If you need to use a food processor make sure you process mixture for a couple of minutes versus just one.

Silky Smooth Cranberry Gingersnap Pie - The Honest Crumb (2024)

Ingredients

Instructions

Recipe Notes

References