Cranberry Sauce

Contains:  Sugar.  Is:  Quick and easy.

Here, served with the Greek yogurt cake from a separate post. But easily served as a turkey enhancement!

Mom liked making everything to do with the Thanksgiving dinner pretty much from scratch – that green bean casserole wasn’t, and nor was the cranberry – the latter I don’t think was something any of us was a true fan of, and so it just didn’t happen.  Instead we had the stuff decanted from the can, with the can’s ridge lines still in place.

I made this a couple years back from scratch, and I like it this way better – but everyone has their own set ideas for Thanksgiving, so that’s okay.  In this case, I decided to use it as a topping for an already-sweet cake, so I cut back a bit on the sugar added.  Plus, there was the raspberry component. If you buy frozen raspberries, look to see that they didn’t add sugar – if a sweetener was indeed added, adjust for that in the “sugar” part of the recipe.

You can always prepare and refrigerate two or three days prior to a holiday.

Home Made Cranberry Sauce

• 12 ounces (one package in the US) /340 grams fresh cranberries.
• An ounce or two (about 45 grams) of local “pick your own” raspberries, frozen and unsweetened, including some liquids.
• 1 cup / 240 mL liquid 
• 1 cup / 240 mL sugar…  (as noted, I used less sweet than the 1:1 ratio called for with liquid)

For the liquid:  Use a combination of water and either orange or grapefruit juice.  Mine was grapefruit juice, some pulp included.  Squeeze the fruit, collect all juices, remove seeds, and fill to volume with water.

For the sugar:  You can use either brown or white sugar.  In this case, I used 1/4 cup maple syrup and filled to volume – or somewhat below – with white sugar.  Since maple syrup does settle more densely than granulated sugar, I’d aim in this case for 3/4 cup total sweetener anyway.

Place everything in a small to medium sauce pan.

Raise temperature to boil, and immediately reduce to a simmer.  The cranberries will start to pop nicely.  Stir gently.  Most of the cranberries will pop – you can mash for a more consistent texture but I chose not to.

Simmer, watching, as the liquid reduces to a close-to-thick texture, close to, but not quite at the texture you want.  This mixture will congeal further while resting in the fridge.  I opted for a more liquid texture as I didn’t plan on serving it on its own, but rather as a cake topping.

And you are done.  Place in the fridge until cool, and up to three days.

This post is shared with:  

What’s For Dinner, Sunday Link Up.

Farm Fresh Tuesdays

Fiesta Friday (where I will be co-hosting this week.)