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Dessert

Cranberry Sauce

A sauce made by boiling cranberries with water and sugar, then straining and cooling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Cranberry Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the berries

  1. Place cranberries in a large bowl.

  2. Pour boiling water over them until the bowl is nearly full.

  3. Let the water cool until you can touch it.

  4. Remove any soft, discolored, or unripe berries.

  5. Transfer the good berries to a porcelain kettle.

  6. Add 1 pint of boiling water to the kettle.

Cook the sauce

  1. Cover the kettle and boil for 20 minutes.

  2. Mash the berries as they cook.

  3. Heat 1 pint of sugar in a baking dish in the oven or by the fire.

  4. Quickly stir in the hot sugar once the cranberries are cooked.

  5. Boil for an additional 5 minutes.

Finish and set

  1. Strain the mixture through a fine vegetable sifter.

  2. Leave it unstrained for a chunkier sauce.

  3. Pour into molds or a bowl.

  4. Let cool until set.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Cranberries
Provide the tart fruit body and pectin that thickens the sauce as it cooks.
White sugar
Sweetens the sauce and balances the tartness of the cranberries.
Boiling water
Softens the berries and forms the liquid that cooks them into a sauce.

The step that matters

Quickly stir in the hot sugar once the cranberries are cooked. Sugar dissolves best into hot liquid, and adding it while the berries are still firm or after overcooking can leave a grainy texture or uneven sweetness. Stirring it in promptly keeps the sauce smooth and evenly set as it cools.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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