I can’t imagine a better time to start writing about food than the week leading up to Thanksgiving! This is my favorite day of the year. It’s like the foodie Superbowl.

I keep running into tips and tricks online and in magazines on how to get around spending the whole day cooking, but in my household a whole day cooking is our idea of an awesome time. Now if only we could find some people to feed. It looks like it’s just going to be the two of us this year but that won’t stop us from making a turkey and all the sides while sipping cranberry mimosas and mulled wine all day (those recipes to come). We start planning our Thanksgiving recipe for the year some time around 8:00 the Thanksgiving before and never quite finish getting excited about what to make or how to switch things up. The one thing we can’t seem to avoid making is our Maple Cranberry Apple Pie. This recipe was a happy accident that happened when we decided to Vermontify a traditional apple pie recipe with some maple syrup while also realizing we didn’t have some of the traditional ingredients for apple pie and subbed in pumpkin pie spice. There, I said it, the secret ingredient to our apple pie is pumpkin pie spice!

Recipe: Maple Cranberry Apple Pie

You’ll Need:

1 package of roll out pie crust – you can get fancy and do it yourself, but we cheat

8 sliced apples – a blend of baking apples and a couple of granny smiths works nicely

½ cup dried cranberries

½ cup sugar

2 tablespoons maple syrup

¼ flour

½ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

½ teaspoon cinnamon – more to taste if you love cinnamon

A pinch of salt

1 egg

2 tablespoons of butter

How To:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Slice apples to a thickness you like, keeping in mind that thicker slices will likely to be firmer when the pie is cooked. We prefer to end up with soft apples so we do a fairly small slice. Mix together the apples, dried cranberries, sugar, maple syrup, flour, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon and salt in a bowl.

To prepare the crust, roll it out and put one sheet into the pie pan. Dump the apple mix into the first pie crust and top with the other. This part can be as easy or as complicated as you like. You can simply put the other crust on top and cut slits to let out steam or go fancier and make a nice lattice or use cookie or pie crust cutters to cut out designs to throw on top. Once your top crust is in place, make an egg wash with one egg white and a splash of water and brush the crust to make it shiny. Dot the top of the pie with the butter. Pop the pie in the oven for around 40 minutes, checking on it periodically. It’s ready to take out once the filling begins to bubble up and the crust is golden brown. Enjoy!