The holidays are fast approaching and I’ve got a cream-licious pie for you. Working with one of my favorite fruits, the cranberry, I’ve teamed them with a gingersnap cookie crust for a mouthwatering treat, my Gingersnap Cranberry Lime Pie!
Gingersnap Cranberry Lime Pie
This beauty of a pie is like a Key Lime Pie that married the fresh and tangy cranberry. This is my adaption from Ann Redding & Matt Danzer’s recipe at Bon Appetit/Epicurious.
A fantastic holiday dessert table treat to wow the family. I also have made these in little mini muffin form for that bite sized treat, too.
But a pie is great for the family dinner table, to bring as a gift for the host or hostess, and if you’re like me, anytime of the year. I purposely buy several extra bags of cranberries and pop them in the freezer for when the time hits during the rest of the year and they’re out of season.
This Cranberry Lime Pie is amazingly sweet and the walnuts ground in with the gingersnap cookie and butter crust is THE perfect combination of flavors to offset the tangy cranberries.
If time is not your friend on these busy holidays and oven time is limited, the crust can get baked and made up to 1 day in advance, too. The crust reminds me of a shortbread. As you pierce the crust with your fork you’ll feel a slight snap and the flavorful crumbs are delicious.
Cranberries cook down with sugar and water then get puréed in a blender before cooking with eggs and the lime juice over a pan of simmering water to cook and thicken.
With an electric mixer you beat in the butter and your done. The cranberry lime curd is amazing.
Simply pour this in your pre-baked pie crust and refrigerate.
I made candied cranberries, too. Just set aside about 12 of them in the beginning. Before serving I rolled them in a small bowl with about a tablespoon of corn syrup and dried them on a wire rack in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Tossed them in a bowl of sugar when they were tacky dry and rolled them until the sugar was crusted all over. On the pie they went for decoration. This is optional of course.
For other cranberry ideas, try my Fresh Cranberry Sauce with Cherry, Cranberry Coffee Cake, or Cranberry Apple Slab Pie. For holiday recipes and ideas come to my Holiday page. Enjoy!
This recipe first appeared on Kevin Is Cooking November 2017 and has been updated with new photos and video.
Gingersnap Cranberry Lime Pie
Ingredients
Crust:
- 4 oz gingersnap cookies (about 18 cookies)
- 1 cup walnuts
- 4 tbsp butter melted
- 3 tbsp light brown sugar
Filling:
- 1 12-ounce package fresh (or frozen, thawed) cranberries
- 1 1/2 cups sugar divided
- 3 large eggs
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1 tsp finely grated lime zest
- 1/2 cup fresh lime juice
- 1/8 tsp of salt
- 3/4 cup butter room temperature, cut into small cubes
Instructions
Crust:
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Pulse cookies in a food processor until finely ground, should be about 1 cup. Add the walnuts and pulse until finely ground. Add butter and brown sugar and pulse to combine.
- Transfer crumb mixture to a non-stick deep 9" pie dish. Press firmly onto bottom and up sides of dish. Bake until firm and slightly darkened in color, 12–15 minutes. If crust slides down sides, gently press back up. Let cool.
Filling:
- Remove 12 cranberries and set aside. Bring remaining cranberries, 1 cup sugar, and 1/4 cup water to a boil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and simmer until cranberries burst and most of the liquid evaporates, 12–15 minutes. Let cool. Purée in a blender until smooth.
- Cook purée, eggs, egg yolks, lime juice, salt, 1/2 cup sugar, and lime zest in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water (bowl should not touch water), stirring with a rubber spatula and scraping down sides of bowl often, until curd thickens and coats spatula, 8–10 minutes. Let cool until just warm.
- Using an electric mixer on medium-high, beat curd, adding butter a piece at a time and incorporating after each addition, until curd looks lighter in color and texture, about 5 minutes total. Scrape into crust and chill until firm, about 2 hours.
Topping:
- Roll 12 reserved cranberries in a small bowl with about a tablespoon of corn syrup and dry them on a wire rack in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- Toss the tacky dried cranberries in a bowl with 1/4 cup of sugar until the sugar is crusted all over. Serve topped on pie.
Notes
- Plan ahead as this needs 2 hours to chill the pie.
- Adapted from Ann Redding & Matt Danzer's recipe at Bon Appetit/Epicurious.
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist's advice.
This looks so good! Do you think if I made it nut free I should just replace the cup of walnuts with an extra cup of gingersnaps?
Thanks, Jamie! It’s a delicious pie. 🙂 If you want a nut-free pie crust, your idea of using all gingersnaps is spot on. My recipe calls for about 18 gingersnaps for 4 oz. I think doubling the amount to 36 cookies should give you plenty of crumbs. To be precise, you might want to crush and measure them out. Hope you enjoy the pie!
could I substitute raspberries for cranberries?
Hi Sophia. The raspberry flavor would be fantastic, but raspberries have a lot of water in them, so you would have to cook some of the water out of them first before pureeing them. I’ve never tested my recipe with another fruit, so I’m sorry that I can’t be more helpful here.
I made this today just had a small piece to test it, delicious, but why did my crust stick very difficult to get out ..
Sorry to read that it stuck to your pie plate. I use a non-stick one. Many are online to choose from. Hope this helps Chris.
Thanks , I used a glass dish have a non stick cant wait to make it again I am not a desert person but couldn’t get enough of this one..
I made this tonight for Thanksgiving tomorrow, it is chilling in the fridge now. It is soooo good! I could not stop “sampling” each component as I was making it. The crust is amazing; however when removing from the oven it did feel soft to the touch, which worried me as I like a crunchy crust; but it became crunchy and flaky as it cooled. In my opinion the best part is the cranberry curd. The cranberries are delicious as they simmer in the water and sugar; but then adding the lime took them to a whole other level. It… Read more »
Thanks so much Natalie, have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
This sounds delicious and the pics look beautiful! I am so very excited to try this recipe! My father’s favorite dessert was key lime pie. He made it for every occasion and holiday. Now, every holiday, we not only miss him but we miss his famous pie. I cannot wait to make this version and take to our next family gathering when COVID is over. Thank you for sharing this!
I am glad you are going to try it! We really enjoy it!
I am so glad you are going to make it! I hope you love it as much as we do!
Wondering if i could change out the walnuts for pecans or any other nut?
Pecans sound like a great choice Ashley.
I have made this the past two years around Christmas and New year. It is delicious, and I have been eyeing the bag of cranberries in my freezer thinking about making it soon.
Oh yes do make it again! It can be refreshing even away from the Holidays!
After reading all the reviews I made the following modifications. This turned out great and everyone loved it!
– make 1.5 times the crust
– temper the hot cranberry sauce into the egg mixture
– Beat the butter and sugar together and add 1.5 tsp cornstarch
– cook everything together on the stove (Not a double boiler) , stirring constantly until it reached 170 degrees
The filling set very quickly using this method.
I am so glad it turned out for you!
I made this last night for Christmas dessert and it was amaaaazing!! The only problem I had was that the custard didn’t stand up as much as I’d have liked, which I’m guessing means I didn’t cook it long enough in the bowl over water. Can you add a more objectively defined way of knowing when the custard has cooked long enough? I allowed it to cook for the 8-10 minutes and it looked like it was sticking to the spatula, but beyond that, I’m not sure how to know when it was enough. I was using gas heat, the… Read more »
I made this for Christmas dinner and it was fabulous !!! Wish I could post a picture of how well it turned out ! Thank you for the recipe it was a hit !
I am so glad to hear that! It is one of my favorites!
This was absolutely AMAZING!
cannot wait to make it again!
Key lime pie is my favorite summer dessert staple so I’m excited to try this for the holidays. Have you tried making this with key lime juice? Or is regular lime juice recommended?
Thank you! Let me know how you enjoy it! I recommend using lime juice. If you try it with key lime juice let me know how it turns out!