With Valentines Day fast approaching, you may be wondering what to get your sweetie. Why not bake your sweetie a pie?
My sweetie is a nut about nuts, so I thought I’d bake him a nut pie. His favorite nuts are cashews and pistachios. But I thought a cashew and pistachio pie would be gross, so I opted for walnut and pecan pie instead. Then I tossed in some raisins and dried cranberries for a chewy dash of sweet tartness… just like me to do that.
I also thought I’d use my mini five-inch pie pan to make it. After all, the best gifts come in small packages.
About the Recipe
This recipe is the adaptation of two different recipes from the New Hampshire Maple Recipes cookbook: 1) Maple Walnut Pie and 2) Maple Pecan Pie. My mom, who lives in New Hampshire, gave me this cookbook one year for Christmas, along with some authentic New England Maple Syrup – a real treat when you’re living in the Midwest.
The Cast of Characters
The stars of this show are walnuts, pecans, raisins and dried cranberries. To meet the rest of the cast, skip to the end of this post for the CliffNotes version of the recipe.
The Play-by-Play
Before you begin, preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Roll out the pie crust into the five-inch pie pan. Add a fourth cup pecan halves, a fourth cup walnut pieces, and an eighth cup dried cranberries and raisins into the crust.
In a separate bowl, mix together a third cup maple syrup, a fourth cup brown sugar, one and a half tablespoons melted butter and one egg until well combined.
Pour the mixture over the dried fruit and nuts in the pie crust.
Bake for 30 minutes or until firmly set.
Let cool for 20 minutes, and then dig in!
The Footnotes
A couple of tricks to using mini baking pans are scaling the ingredients and adjusting the baking time accordingly.
- About scaling the ingredients: Most of the ingredients, I cut in a half or a third from the original recipe, which made a nine-inch pie. I made a five-inch pie.
- About the baking time: Most of the full-version pecan pie recipes I read baked for about 45 to 55 minutes. Yet, the walnut pie recipe I found called for baking for 30 to 35 minutes. I went for the shorter baking time (30 to 35 minutes) for this mini nut pie variation. When the filling is no longer “jiggly,” it’s time to take it out. I probably could have taken this particular pie out of the oven at the 20-minute mark.
One other trick to making this recipe:
- Make sure eggs and syrup are at room temperature for the best results.
The Recipe: Little Bitty Cranberry Raisin Nut Pie
Baking Time:
30 to 35 minutes
Servings:
1 five-inch pie
Ingredients:
1 five-inch pie crust
¼ cup pecans halves
¼ cup chopped walnuts
1/8 cup dried cranberries and raisins
1/3 cup maple syrup
¼ cup brown sugar
1 ½ tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1 egg, beaten
½ teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions:
- Roll out the pie crust into the pie pan. Add the nuts, dried cranberries and raisins into the crust.
- In a separate bowl, mix together the syrup, sugar, butter and egg until well combined.
- Pour the mixture over the dried fruit and nuts in the pie crust.
- Bake for 20-30 minutes or until firmly set.
- Let cool for 20 minutes before serving.
Makes one five-inch pie.