Cranberry Orange Crisp
Cranberry Madness
I never liked cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving growing up. My mother often used the typical cranberry in a can to go along with turkey on non-Thanksgiving-holidays. On Thanksgiving itself, she made her own cranberry sauce, but it was a more natural mirror image of the canned variety, sans the horizontal lines that were etched into the red can shape.
Truth be told, my mother’s cranberry sauce over the years has become a bit more textured, like a combination of the can and homemade styles, and, truth be told, as I grew into an adult, I began to appreciate the tart, sweet taste breaking into the unctuousness of our family giblet stuffing, turkey, and mashed potatoes.
As baking became more than a hobby, and my boyfriend’s love for peach crisps entered into my repertoire, I began to notice more and more variations on traditional Thanksgiving desserts (pie, let’s be honest.) I noticed cobblers, crumbles, and crisps that did include cranberry, but were often paired with very sweet fruits like apple or pear.
Being myself, and loving the strong, tart quality of cranberry, I decided to make the crisp flavor be unadulterated cranberry. Then, I pulled back slightly. While I didn’t want the cranberry to lose its center place in the show, I decided to emphasize its tart flavor with a little orange accompaniment (in the form of juice and rind).
Notes & Tips
The recipe itself is ridiculously simple. The bottom layer is just a sweetened cranberry orange compote baked with a top layer of buttery oats and nuts with a hint of cinnamon. I used pecans, bought early for Thanksgiving, but walnuts would be great too. I tend to overuse almonds in my Croatian-Italian style of baking (because they’re delicious), but as this is a strictly North American staple (cranberries), I decided to put to some robust nuts to the task. I also decided on white sugar to sweeten the cranberries and brown sugar to warm up the crisp.
Lastly, I was eager to use my cast iron skillet, since it meant prepping the cranberries and then popping the whole thing in the oven, but moving the cooked cranberries into a baking dish works just fine too.
The result is a buttery, crunchy top and, hiding out beneath, a tart/sweet mouthful of cranberry with a hint of winter citrus. A round slab of vanilla ice cream on top can’t hurt either.
Cranberry Orange Crisp
Ingredients
- 4-5 cups cranberries
- 3/4 cups white sugar
- 1/2 cups orange juice
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract plus 1 teaspoon rum or brandy
- zest of one orange
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1/2 cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts are best)
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup melted butter
- 1/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1/4 tbsp ground cinnamon
- pinch of nutmeg
- pinch of salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a cast iron skillet or deep pan. Over a medium-low heat, combine cranberries, white sugar, orange juice/zest, and vanilla/rum or brandy for 5-10 minutes until bubbles simmer. Set aside.
- Stir together oats, brown sugar, nuts, melted butter, flour, and salt/spices together with a whisk to combine.
- If using a separate baking dish, pour the cranberry mixture into it, or, if a cast iron skillet, simply add the crisp topping evenly on top of the cranberry compote. Bake for 30 minutes, or until golden. Allow to rest for 10 minutes and, if another texture is desired, serve with vanilla ice cream.
