Quick and easy Sugared Cranberries make a beautiful garnish on cakes, pies, or cocktails and make a delicious sweet treat for your holiday celebrations!
I’m not a cranberry sauce fan. At least not yet. Are you?
I’ve not found or created a recipe that’s wowed me.
Sugared Cranberries on the other hand, I adore.
Have you made them?
When I first made Sugared Cranberries, I was so surprised how quickly they come together and how much I loved them given my cranberry sauce aversion.
Three ingredients y’all!
They make tasty gifts too.
A quick (hands on time) and easy recipe that’s so impressive during the holidays.
And just look at that color!
How Do Sugared Cranberries Taste?
They’re sweet and sour, but balanced. The cranberry pops under the pressure of a bite, an exhilarating sensation I might add, then sweetness kicks in leaving a bold experience of both sweet and sour. Can cranberry sauce do that?
Make a 1/2 batch, full, double or triple based on needs. Your family and guests will appreciate them.
A Few Recipe Notes
- Plan ahead! While these sugared cranberries require very little hands on time to prepare, they need one hour to dry out.
- Don’t throw out that sugar syrup! It’s fabulous in cocktails or to brush on tops of cakes.
- Storage: Store at room temperature for up to two days. After two days, you may notice the sugar ‘weaping.’ At this point and if the cranberries are still firm, you can simply toss them in sugar again to give them a refresher.
- A small bowl of rice stored in the lidded container with the cranberries absorbs excess moisture in the air keeping the cranberries fresher, longer.
How to Enjoy Sugared Cranberries
- Pop em’ in your mouth.
- Garnish a cocktail, may I suggest The Big Sister or this Cranberry Orange Gin Smash.
- Top Gingerbread Cake slices or cupcakes…
- Top sweet potato mash.
- Scatter them on top of Mini Pumpkin Pies.
- Save the sugar syrup for cocktails!
- They’re festive as an offering on a cheese board or appetizer table.
Watch a Video To See How Simple These Are To Make!
Sugared Cranberries
Ingredients
- 1/2 C Water 118g
- 3/4 C Cane Sugar divided*, 176g
- 1 C Fresh Cranberries 112g
Instructions
- In a small sauce-pot, whisk water and 1/2 C (134g) of sugar to combine. Bring just to a simmer and whisk until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in the cranberries so that they are coated evenly with the sugar syrup. Cover and let steep for 10 minutes.
- Strain, reserving the syrup*. Separate the cranberries and place on a piece of parchment paper on a wire cooling rack. Allow to dry out for one hour.
- Place the remaining sugar on a plate and transfer the cranberries to the plate, rolling the cranberries in the sugar to coat. This is sticky, but as the cranberries get coated, they wont stick to your hands as much.
- Place the cranberries in a lidded container with a little bowl of rice. The rice helps keep the cranberries fresh by absorbing any moisture in the air. Sugar loves water and will pull it right out of the air making your cranberries soggy quicker than you'd prefer. It should stay fresh for two days, if they last that long! After two days, you'll notice the cranberries "weeping." To freshen them up again, simply toss them with sugar again.
Just finished doing my cranberries for a cake topping. My berries are beautiful. Definitely giving this 5 stars.
Hi There, I would like to use these as garnish for a drink and prepare in advance. Can I freeze these?
Hi Marianne! I’ve not tried it but if frozen, you’d have to thaw them out to use. The cranberries would probably be mushy, and the sugar would absorb any surrounding moisture. You could try a few test cranberries though, prior to committing the whole batch if you want to give it a go.
Thanks for the recipe. Sounds simple enough. Could you change the time needed though?
It suggests 15 minutes but in the body you say you have to let the cranberries sit and cool for an hour.
Big difference in time.
I was looking for a last minute garnish for a pie, and I was initially pleased to see only 15 minutes, then despondent to see 1 hour.
Hi Metqa! Thank you for your note! So happy you enjoyed the cranberries. I’ve updated the top recipe notes to include the hands off time needed to dry the cranberries. Thank you again!