Cranberry & pear pies

These cute and festive pies make a good warm dessert or a tangy alternative to mince pies

  • Prep:40 mins
    Cook:20 mins
    Plus chilling
  • Easy

Nutrition per serving

  • kcal 709
  • fat 35g
  • saturates 18g
  • carbs 97g
  • sugars 59g
  • fibre 5g
  • protein 9g
  • salt 0.45g

Ingredients

  • 350g plain flour
  • 85g ground almonds
  • 140g caster sugar, plus extra to decorate
  • 225g butter, chopped
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 400g cranberries, fresh or frozen
  • 50g caster sugar
  • 25g cornflour
  • 325g jar orange curd (we used Waitrose Jaffa orange curd)
  • 450g just-ripe pears, peeled, cored and chopped

Method

  1. To make the pastry, tip the flour, almonds and sugar into a food processor then pulse in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Pulse in up to 5 tbsp cold water until mixture comes together as a dough. Wrap in cling film and chill for 1 hr.

  2. To make the filling, tip the cranberries into a pan with the sugar and cornflour and stir well. Stir in the orange curd, then cook for a few mins until thickened. Add the pears and cook a few mins more, stirring frequently. Cool.

  3. Heat oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5 with a large baking sheet inside. Roll out the pastry and use to line 8 x 10cm individual Yorkshire pudding tins (or 10cm individual tart tins). Spoon in the cooled filling. Roll out the rest of the dough and stamp out 4 x 9cm rounds to make lids. Cut out the centres with a medium star cutter.

  4. Carefully cover half the pies with the pastry lids and place the stars on a baking tray. Crimp the edges of each pie (if using straight edged tins) with your finger and thumb, brush the pies and stars with the egg then dredge with sugar. Bake the stars for 8-10 mins and the pies for 15-20 mins until golden. Dredge with more sugar once out of the oven. Place a star on the open pies and serve with cream or ice cream.

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