The best way to eat cranberries – they’re practically candy!
Cranberries are an almost must-have on the Thanksgiving table in America, though I’m honestly not sure why. A lot of people offer cranberry sauce, but you can also offer sugared cranberries like this to be used as an individual treat or a topping on other desserts. I’ve never been very big on cranberries. My mom used to have us drink cranberry juice… just plain cranberry juice. It was almost unbearably tart, and I learned to despise it. But, I must admit, sweetened versions of cranberries, like this recipe offers, have me revising my previous aversion to the berry.
The origin of sugared cranberries isn’t explicitly known, but it seems like common sense to me. Cranberries need sugar. They really need sugar. If you’ve ever bitten into a plain, unsugared, unprocessed cranberry, you know this is true. If you haven’t, give it a try, and you’ll immediately understand. So, let’s keep our cranberries sugared!
Sugared cranberries pop with flavor in your mouth. What I love best is using them as a topping for something like a Homemade Chocolate Cake, especially one made with dark chocolate ganache or frosting. The semi-sweet nature of dark chocolate is complemented wonderfully by the tart burst of cranberry.
Sweet Simple Syrup…
Simple syrup is pretty straightforward to work with, but there’s an important thing to note. Your syrup isn’t a boiling pot. It’s a syrup. You don’t want it so hot that it’s going to cook your cranberries! Let it cool a bit to about room temperature. That way, it coats your cranberries and sticks to them, but it doesn’t change the texture of the berries.
FAQs & Tips
How to Make Ahead and Store
You can store these tasty treats in a covered container that’s kept in a room-temperature and dry environment for about 2 days. If you’re like me and you live in South Florida or an equally humid place, your sugared cranberries might get a little sticky with time. The easy solution is just to roll them in a bit more sugar and let them dry out again.
Dry Your Berries!
When you’re working with cranberries, you need them to be dry before putting them in the syrup. This is why you can’t use frozen or thawed cranberries; they won’t work. The frozen water makes them too slippery and wet, so when you go to try and sweeten them with your syrup and your sugar, it won’t stick.
Spacing…
Space out your cranberries when they’re drying! Any syrup is going to be a sticky concoction, and homemade simple syrup is no exception. If you don’t want clumped-together cranberries that are all stuck to each other and peeling the sugar off each other as you try to pull them apart, you need to let them dry, spaced out evenly and not touching each other.
Serving Suggestions
There are so many amazing and delicious ways to serve your sugared cranberries that I’m not even sure where to start! Chocolate cakes are great, as I mentioned before, but almost any dessert is a viable option too. Use them on Pavlova, Chocolate Raspberry Cake, Ice Cream Cake, Vanilla Ice Cream, or Ricotta Cheesecake. You can also serve them up next to a cheese platter or in a bowl by themselves, like offering natural candies. The choice is up to you and your tastes!
Sugared Cranberries
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 3 cups fresh cranberries rinsed and dried
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan, heat the water and 1/2 cup of sugar over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture reaches a simmer.
- Add the cranberries to the saucepan, stirring gently to coat them in the syrup. Remove the pan from the heat after about a minute, ensuring all cranberries are well coated.
- Using a slotted spoon, transfer the cranberries to a wire rack or parchment-lined baking sheet to dry for about an hour.
- Once the cranberries are tacky to the touch but not wet, roll them in the remaining 1 cup of sugar until they are fully coated with a sparkling layer.
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