Cranberry Pandowdy
MAKES
One 9 inch / 23 cm square pandowdy (about 8 servings)
TAKES
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour
Total: 1 hour 30 minutes
✻ ABOUT THIS RECIPE
Pandowdy is one of the great casserole style fruit desserts, like cobblers and crisps. I happen to love pandowdy the most because it is traditionally topped with pie crust. It’s most often done with one large piece of dough, I love to use layered cutouts. It’s a fun presentation, but it also helps the crust bake more evenly and quickly. Cranberries are underutilized in my opinion, and star as the filling for this easy recipe. They’re juicy, sour, and contain enough pectin to naturally (and easily!) thicken into a really lovely filling with very few additional ingredients.
INGREDIENTS
unsalted butter, as needed for greasing pan
908 g / 2 pounds fresh or frozen cranberries (thawed, if frozen)
106 g / ½ cup light or dark brown sugar
99 g / ½ cup granulated sugar
30 g / 2 tablespoons boiled cider, cider, or orange juice
3 g / 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 g / ½ teaspoon ground ginger
2 g / ½ teaspoon ground cloves
1 g / ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
7 g / 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract or 4 g / 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
2x recipe Extra Flaky All Buttah Pie Dough, prepared and well-chilled
30 g / 2 tablespoons heavy cream
turbinado sugar, as needed for finishing
My Favorite Crust, Step by Step:
METHOD
1. Preheat the oven to 400°F / 205°C with an oven rack in the center of the oven. Generously grease a 9 inch / 23 cm square baking pan with butter.
2. In a large bowl, toss the cranberries, brown sugar, sugar, boiled cider (or other liquid), cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt, and vanilla to combine.
3. Pour the cranberry mixture into the prepared pan and spread into a fairly even layer. Set aside.
4. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pie dough to ¼ inch / 6 mm. Use a cookie cutter about 2 inch / 5 cm wide to cut shapes from the dough. Gather the scrap dough, gently knead back together, and re-roll as needed.
5. Arrange the pie crust cutouts over the surface. You can do this randomly, in rows - however you like. The pieces should be slightly overlapping and the surface of the fruit fairly uniformly covered with cutouts.
6. Brush the surface of the pie dough generously with cream (it’s ok if some drips or pools into the filling below the crust), and generously sprinkle turbinado sugar over the surface.
7. Transfer to the oven and bake until the crust is deeply golden brown and the filling is vigorously bubbling through the crust cutouts, 50 minutes - 1 hour.
8. Cool for at least 10 minutes before serving warm.
NOTES
This recipe is delicious served with whipped cream, custard sauce, or ice cream!
✻ HAVE YOU BAKED IT?
Tag @emcdowell on Instagram or use #happybaking. I’d love to see your bakes!
