We bought a CSA box recently and received some cranberries. I have never had cranberries in their regular form before and since I’m not a big cranberry sauce fan but I do like cranberry juice, I thought I’d try my hand at baking a cranberry custard pie… that and we’re almost at the end of this project and I promised my bestie a pie when I started this blog a year ago, so I thought this was probably a sign to try out baking pie again. (aside from the Hipster Pie I made earlier, but that was a cracker crust so I don’t count it!)

Instead of using sour cream in the crust like my first attempt, I used a good old fashioned butter crust! I also did a little more research before I started and found out that the key to pie crust is working quickly and keeping everything cold. So I waited until the toddler was either occupied with my hubby or in bed to do most of the work so I wouldn’t waste time having to stop in the middle of the butter crust steps.  (I also chose butter crust because I won’t lie, shortening kind of creeps me out…)

The crust came out WAY WAY WAY better than my other attempts. I didt try to get fancyn’t that doesn’t mean there weren’t some oops moments along the way. I don’t think my pie dish was deep enough for the massive amount of custardy filling the recipe called for, even after I reduced the filling amount. I was worried I had ruined the pie and could only sit waiting and hoping and nursing a glass of wine… well the filling definitely spilled over out of the pie making a not so pretty final project and totally erasing the pretty little M I had made for the middle of the pie (my friend’s initial)

Exploding custard pie…

… Luckily my husband was happy to try and cut away the pieces of filling that exploded out… and eat them all. He was obsessed with the filling and offered to eat whatever pie wasn’t wanted. Sorry honey, I’ll make you a pie next time…

The important thing is I wanted to bake something special for the girl I consider my non-biological sister. She has been working her butt off to pass a big test for work and yesterday she did! On top of

You can almost still see the M… It’s the taste that counts, right? Still better than last time…

that, she has been there for me throughout the ups and downs and crazy stresses of this year. She’s even one of the people who inspired me to start blogging in the first place. She was kind enough to taste test for me and cheerlead for me during both my successes and failures this year,and I want to celebrate her!

Speaking of celebrating- one more baking project to go until I reach my resolution goal! WOO!!!