Whole-Wheat Apple-Cranberry Pie

From time to time after dinner we find ourselves wondering in the kitchen looking for something delicious to eat. Such days call for some apple-cranberry pie action. This rich in fiber, light, and tasty pie always satisfies us. Moreover, this desert is easy to make, does not take too much time to prepare, and best of all, it leaves room for variation. For instance, this pie can be made with peaches, nectarines, walnuts, or poppy seeds. We, however, love the sweet and sour combination of apples and cranberries and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

This recipe makes approximately 8 servings. One serving is 1/8 of a pie.

Calorie counter 

sugar	385
eggs	223
white flower	228
whole wheat flower	300
apples	195
cranberries	51
oil	125
total calories	1507
calories/serving	188

Ingredients

3 large eggs

1/2 cup of sugar

1/2 cup of all purpose flour

3/4 cups of whole-wheat flour

3 medium-sized apples

1 cup of fresh (or frozen) cranberries

1/4 teaspoons of baking soda

3/4 teaspoons of vinegar

1 table spoon of vegetable oil

Recipe 

1. Peel and cut out the centers of the apples.  

2. With a mixer beat the eggs and sugar for a few minutes.

3. Add the flour and mix again. Make sure the dough does not have any flour clumps. The mix should be liquid enough to be easy to mix with a spoon. If you feel like your mix too hard you can add a couple of tablespoons of milk or water. Set the dough aside. Whole-wheat flour takes a few minutes to absorb moisture and mix in well.
4. Meanwhile cut the peeled apples in quarters. Next, slice each quarter into pieces approximately 1 cm wide. Set aside.

5. In a teaspoon combine the vinegar and baking soda. Immediately you should see foam forming. As soon as most of baking soda reacts with vinegar add the mixture to the dough and mix it in well. This step should be done quickly while foam is still forming. Set the dough aside for 5 minutes.

6. Preheat the oven to 375F. This is the time to prepare the dish you plan to bake in. I like to use cast iron pan because it heats up evenly. I usually cover the base and sides with aluminum foil so that the baked product does not stick to the pan and can be easily removed. Regular non-stick baking dishes or ceramic ones are also fine. For this apple-cranberry pie your dish should be at most 2/3 way full when you add the mix so that there is room for the dough to rise when it is baking. Decide what dish to use and rub/spray it with some vegetable oil. Preheat the baking dish for a couple of minutes.

7. Mix in chopped apples and washed cranberries. Don't overdo or all the cranberries will get smashed.

8. Transfer the dough to preheated baking dish. Place in the oven and bake at 375F for the first 25-30 min or until you notice that the top of the pie is turning golden. (Note: Do not open the oven right after you put the pie in because rapid decrease in temperature might cause your rising dough to fall.) Turn down the heat to 350F and finish baking. Total baking time is approximately 45-55min. You can check if the pie is baked by poking it with a thin wooden stick. If the stick comes out easy and has no unbaked dough on it then it is well baked though.

9. If you like a crispy top you can turn the oven off and leave the pie inside as it is for 15-20 min. 

10. Take the desert out of the oven and cool down until you can safely remove it from the baking dish, then let it cool down to room temperature. 

11. If you don't care about all the calorie counting this pie goes great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!