Thanksgiving Pie #1

I had a couple of lovely friends over for dinner last night and I decided it was a perfect occasion for my first Thanksgiving pie of the season. I fell in love with several of the Thanksgiving pie suggestions from King Arthur Flour and decided to start with the Cranberry Fudge Pie. If you need a little help deciding which baked goods to bless your Thanksgiving table this month I would highly suggest checking out this site. King Arthur really knows the good stuff!

This pie was so rich and delicious. It started out with a graham cracker crust. I think there might have been a bit much of the crust in the recipe so it was extra thick. Next was the creation of a lovely chocolate ganache which is simple chocolate melted with heavy cream. For this I used a nice combo of semi-sweet chocolate chips and dark chocolate chips. This is poured into the crust, topped with toasted pecans and chilled overnight.

Next a lovely cranberry sauce was created by boiling together juice, I used apple juice because that's what I had instead of the prescribed cranberry juice, along with sugar. Then dried cranberries were added and a package of fresh cranberries. Cooked together until the fresh started to pop and then chilled as well.

Cranberry sauce is added on top of the chocolate layer and chilled together. Ready for the eating. 

I usually manage to forget to photograph the final product on the plate before eating. I suppose I'm just not that precise of a food blogger yet, because my first thought is not to photograph but to eat! It was certainly tasty. Rich with the chocolate layer but perfect with the sweet/tangy combination of the cranberries. Delicious!

Thankful

Every year at harvest time I take the time to express my thanks to the farmers that work so hard year round. Growing up on the farm the harvest has always been a part of our lives but we've never been the actual farmers that complete it. When I was younger I remember making banana bread to take to the farmers in our fields. For the past several years making pies during harvest has been my tradition. Imagine that this year I almost forgot! The simple fact of being in town, I suppose that being removed from the sight of combines in the fields allowed me to merely forget that it was time for me to get out my pie baking skills. Not to worry, a little late is definitely better than never so yesterday I got out my skills and the cherries in the freezer and went to work. So thank you to all the farmers that work so hard so that I can be a happy baker and use the product of their toil!