Skip to main content
Dessert

Cranberry Sauce

A sweet sauce made from cranberries, sugar, orange pulp and rind, raisins, cooked until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Orange and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,684 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cranberry Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the cranberries until they burst.

  2. Strain the cranberries.

  3. Add an equal amount of sugar to the strained cranberries.

  4. Mix in the pulp of three oranges, one cup of raisins, and the grated rind of one orange.

  5. Cook the mixture until it thickens.

  6. Mold the thickened sauce.

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

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Orange + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cranberries
Provide the main body and tart flavor, and their pectin helps the sauce thicken as it cooks.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and balances the tartness of the cranberries.
Oranges
Add bright citrus aroma and acidity from the pulp and grated rind.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until it thickens. Cranberries set as they cool because of natural pectin, which needs enough cooking and sugar to gel. Stopping too early leaves a thin sauce, while overcooking can make it stiff and sticky.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, raisin):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes