Sugared Cranberries

The past two weeks were heaven. I’m pretty sure heaven includes slobbery kisses from cutie nephews, way too much sugar, family time, the smells of a real Christmas tree, lots of reading, antiquing, and always always coffee.

Heaven probably has tons of sparkly things, don’t you think?

Angels, halos, sparkly wings and all that?

I think so. If you think a house dolled up for the holidays is pretty, I bet Heaven is 100 times better.

We’ve been doing homemade Christmas gifts the past couple of years now, and these sugared cranberries are some of my favorites. Everything else in our baskets are chocolate or straight sugar: toffee, bark, chocolate dipped pretzels, brittle. It’s nice to have one thing that’s tart instead of sweet. Fruit instead of candy.

Instead of leaving these alone, I tried a new twist on these little jewels this year and added some fresh ginger to the simple syrup. Ginger and cranberries are meant to be together.

Sweet, tart, a little spicy and gorgeous once they’re all glittery from the sugar.

The holidays may be over, but cranberries are still here – sparkle it up!

 

Sugared Cranberries

Makes: 2 cups cranberries

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups water
• 1″ piece of fresh ginger, peeled
• 2 cups fresh cranberries
• 2 cups sugar

Directions:

1. Place cranberries in a large bowl and set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan, bring 2 cups of sugar, water, and ginger to a boil and stir until sugar is dissolved. Remove the pan from heat and set aside to cool for 2-3 minutes.
3. Pour the sugar syrup over the cranberries, stir, and let the cranberries sit for 4-6 hours or overnight, stirring occasionally.
4. Put 2 cups of sugar into a bowl.
5. Drain the cranberries from the simple syrup and add cranberries, in batches, to the sugar. Toss the cranberries with the sugar, shaking them in your hand to remove the extra sugar and coat them all the way around.
6. Put the sugared cranberries on a parchment lined baking sheet and let them dry for 2-3 hours.

Tagged as: ginger sugared cranberries, sugared cranberries