Homemade cranberries in sugar

In autumn, at the height of the cranberry season, the right moment comes to prepare not only tasty, but also healthy treats from childhood – after all, not only children like cranberries in sugar, many adults use these sweets with pleasure as a prophylactic against many diseases. In addition, regular consumption of cranberry sweets helps maintain healthy skin and hair, helps with myopia, reduces anxiety, which is very important in our difficult time.

Berry preparation

For the preparation of this unpretentious, at first glance, delicacies, fresh berries are best suited. However, frozen berries can also be used, but only on the condition that they do not choke and completely retain their shape.

The most important condition that cranberries must meet is to be absolutely dry. That is why, after careful selection and washing in cold water, they are laid out on a paper towel and left to dry for at least 8 hours. It is best to do this operation in the evening. If moisture remains on the berries, they will be stored worse. And the delicacy itself may simply fail due to the fact that wet berries cannot be properly saturated with sugar or protein glaze.

It is for this reason that cranberries in sugar are rarely made from frozen berries – after all, very often they do not retain their integrity during the defrosting process and it is difficult to use them to make this delicacy.

sugar cranberry recipe

Although the sweetness is called “cranberries in sugar”, powdered sugar is most often used to make the dish. It is she who allows the delicacy to acquire such an unusually white, attractive appearance. Powdered sugar can be purchased at any grocery store, and it’s even easier to make your own. To do this, you need either a coffee grinder or a blender. From ordinary granulated sugar, snow-white icing sugar is obtained in literally 30-40 seconds.

But according to the main recipe, granulated sugar is still useful. So, to prepare such a healthy yummy, you need only three ingredients:

• Xnumx C cranberries;
• 500 ml of water;
• Xnumx g of granulated sugar.

The manufacturing process is simple, but will require some amount of time.

1. First, sugar syrup is made from the entire volume of water and 500 g of sugar. Boil water with sugar until the sugar is completely dissolved.
   Comment! As a tasty and healthy addition to sugar syrup, a teaspoon of lemon juice is sometimes added, but this is not at all necessary.
2. The berries, placed in a container with a large flat bottom, are poured with warm syrup so that it completely covers all the berries.
3. After the syrup has cooled, the container is covered with a lid or plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator overnight.

   

4. The next day, powdered sugar is prepared in any convenient way from the remaining amount of sugar.
5. Cranberries are removed from the syrup and rolled in powdered sugar.
6. With a small number of berries, this can be done by hand, rolling the cranberries with your fingers like snowballs.
7. If there are quite a lot of berries, then it is better to place them in small portions in a deep flat container filled with powdered sugar. And shaking it in a circular motion, ensure that all the berries are evenly rolled in sugar.
8. At the final stage of manufacturing, cranberries in sugar must be slightly dried.
9. It is best to do this in an electric dryer or oven – at a temperature of about + 40 ° + 50 ° C, sugar balls will dry out in just half an hour. At room temperature, the sweets dry out in 2-3 hours.

• The finished delicacy can be stored in tin or dry glass jars, and small portions in cardboard boxes.

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• The syrup in which cranberries have been soaked can also be used to make compote, fruit drink or various cocktails.

Cranberries in powdered sugar

There is another, no less interesting way to make cranberries in sugar, which uses egg whites.

The ingredients are also the simplest:

• 1 glass of cranberries;
• 1 egg;
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Cooking won’t take too long.

1. Berries, as usual, are selected the strongest and most beautiful.
2. The egg is divided into yolk and white. The yolk is no longer needed – it is used for other dishes. And the protein is lightly whipped, but it is not necessary to wait for the appearance of foam.
3. Cranberries are placed in a container with protein and gently shaken for a while so that all the berries come into contact with the egg white.
4. Then, using a slotted spoon, the cranberries are moved to a colander to get rid of excess protein moisture.
5. Powdered sugar is placed on a flat dish, where cranberries are added in small quantities and they begin to roll each berry in sugar according to the already familiar pattern.

   

6. After the cranberry balls have reached the proper size and condition, they are carefully laid out on a baking sheet covered with paper and dried in an oven at a temperature not exceeding +50 ° C or in a warm dry room.

glazed cranberry recipe

There are many variations of cooking cranberries in sugar using egg white. Below is a recipe that is closest to the method by which this delicacy is made in the factory. According to a technology specially developed back in the middle of the 20th century, the berry must first be impregnated with a special protein glaze, which, in addition to sugar and egg white, must necessarily include starch. It performs the function of pulling excess moisture onto itself, due to which each berry is covered, as it were, with a special crispy shell. The exact proportions of the use of starch are usually chosen by each housewife for herself empirically, but it should not be too much. By the way, it is easiest to find potato starch on sale, but when using corn and especially wheat starch, the product will turn out to be much more delicate in taste.

So, to prepare cranberries in sugar according to the recipe, you will need:

• Xnumx C cranberries;
• 1 egg;
• 250 g of powdered sugar;
• about 2-3 tablespoons of potato starch;
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon optional
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice optional.

The process of making sweets according to this recipe cannot be called complicated.

1. Cranberries are prepared and selected in a standard manner.
2. The protein is separated from the yolk in a separate container.
3. Add a few tablespoons of powdered sugar and, if desired, lemon juice.
4. Thoroughly mix the protein mixture until smooth. It is not necessary to whip it into a strong foam.
5. Starch is gradually added to the protein mixture and stirred until a homogeneous, semi-liquid state is obtained. The icing should turn out to be a rich white color, with a consistency resembling not very thick condensed milk.
6. Prepared cranberries are placed in a container with icing and they begin to shake it constantly, ensuring that all the berries are covered with icing.
7. It is undesirable to use a spoon for stirring – it is better to leave the cranberries in the glaze for 4-6 minutes so that it is well saturated with it.
8. Meanwhile, in another container, prepare a mixture of powdered sugar and ground cinnamon. However, cinnamon is used exclusively at will, since a mixture with it will not give that snow-white effect for sprinkling cranberries.

   

9. Using a spoon with holes (slotted spoon), the berries begin to gradually shift from the glaze into a container with powdered sugar.

• Do this in small portions, rolling each portion in sugar for at least 2-3 minutes to create a layer of sprinkle of a suitable size.
• It is not always possible to immediately achieve a suitable thickness of the berry sprinkling layer.

  

• If the first time it seemed that the layer of sprinkling was not enough, then the berry can be dipped again in the icing, after which it is again thoroughly rolled in powdered sugar.
• As a result, each berry will be covered with a strong armor of sugar and will look very attractive.
• Well, the final stage, as usual, consists of drying – you can’t do without it, otherwise the berries will not live long.

Conclusion

Sweets “cranberries in sugar”, created according to the above recipes, will surely delight all lovers of sweets with their appearance and taste. They can be stored for quite a long time in dry and cool conditions and, placed in colorful packaging, can be an excellent gift for any occasion.