Friendsgiving II

This time there was not a list on how many desserts people could bring. Which resulted in no less than six pies for twenty people! (Not including ice cream and numerous cheese cakes.) I decided to bring the cranberry crumble. I have been working on this recipe through the autumn, as I love cranberries and want to find more uses for them. I love crumble to, so it really is a nice match.

This crumble was the fourth iteration in the process. The first was actually a blueberry crumble because Jennifer doesn't like cranberries like I like cranberries. I followed a recipe I found on the Internet and made only one modification which was splitting the half cup of almonds into a quarter cup of almonds and a quarter cup of pecans. All subsequent versions use all pecans. (Ran out of almonds.) For numerous reasons, the filling came out runny and very liquid, but the crumble was perfect. Also, the filling seemed to sweet to me. So I set out making the first cranberry version.

Because I was using fresh cranberries, I opted to create the filling prior to topping it with crumble. To sweeten the cranberries I used blueberries, and I also added some sugar. The filling was still hot when I put it into the pan and topped it with the crumble resulting in a crumble that cooked a little faster closer to the filling. The result was a tasty crumble, but little cranberry shined through the 50/50 mix of blueberries and cranberries. And because of the hot filling, the crumble top was not perfect. So back to the lab. Uh, I mean kitchen.

The next time around I used less blueberries to sweeten the cranberries, and used no sugar in the filling. (Except some OJ, and Grand Marnier.) I cooled the filling before baking it with the crumble and it came out great. For yesterday's feast, I used roughly the same version, but with less blueberries, OJ and GM, in an effort to make the cranberry tartness stand out even more. I think it worked.

I also made "candied yams" for the dinner. I was attempting to duplicate something my mom prepared when I was younger. I'm pretty sure it was a frozen side dish that was heated in the oven consisting of yams or sweet potatoes and apples in a cinnamon sauce. Doing searches on the Internet to find such a recipe was not easy. Most searches for "candied yams" produce recipes like the mashers I made last week with the marshmallow on top. I had to search for yams and apples, but most recipes were weird (canned yams) or had too many ingredients (pecans, cranberries.) I found one that fit close enough and I substituted the corn syrup for brown sugar and it gave it a go without really measuring anything. I was afraid it wouldn't match my memory, but it came out nice and sweet and was well received at the dinner.