People often have very specific and fixed preferences for the foods associated with holidays. Even if what you make is better than the original they may still prefer the beloved tried-and-true.

No recipe as such, but if you want to make it cook cranberries with a little water until the skins pop.

Put the mixture through a sieve or food mill to remove tough skins and any seeds.

Return the puree to the pan and add sugar to taste. Cook to the jell point. You can process like jam or refrigerate.

Cranberries are naturally high in pectin, so additional pectin shouldn't be necessary, but if you want to use some, go ahead.

Carol

The typical canned cranberry sauce is so firm it can be slid whole out of the can and easily sliced into firm uniform slices that will retain their shape indefinitely. The home canned isn't nearly so firm. It has the consistency of jelly. You can stand a spoon up in it but it will slowly fall over and the slices aren't clean and firm. Not the same appearance or texture or mouth feel.

Sure you could add more pectin but it will only firm it up a little more and it does affect the flavor a bit due to the citrus in the pectin.

If your family is picky about their cranberry sauce I don't think they will like it as much and you'd have a lot of it to eat. I'd use the cranberries to make other things. Use them in baking muffins and cranberry bread instead or cranberry syrup for example.

Dave

If you felt inclined you could do a small refrigerated batch and offer it with the canned variety. A "taste test" might be kind of fun for Thanksgiving. And you may discover some family members, if not all, do prefer it.

Carol

It was a little difficult because after the fifth or sixth time begging off they began to wonder what was up. But there's nothing like being with someone making a big stink to the poor waitress about a trivial issue. (This is a woman who loves deep fried macaroni and cheese so it's not as if she's a gourmet.)

Back to the subject - the British make what they call "fruit cheese" which is a jellied fruit puree you can slide out of a jar and slice. I have some recipes somewhere around here but it would take a bit of digging.

I tried looking online but kept running into cheeses with cranberry bits and that sort of thing and just didn't have time to do more intensive searching.

But when I get a minute I'll see if I can find something, either dig out a book or do an advanced search on UK sites.

There's also pate de fruit or fruit jellies, those jellied candies cut in squares and rolled in sugar. I've meant for some time to try that out, but they don't keep very well and if there's a lot of moisture in the air keeping them around is even more problematic.

Carol

I did find a recipe for Damson plum cheese or paste - the process is the same, though cranberries are so acidic I don't think you'd need lemon juice.

Blitz the cranberries in a food processor, but not too fine. We used to use the old hand crank Universal grinder growing up. Add sugar to the cranberries and let the juices come out. Make the Jell-O and once you add the cold water, mix it with everything else and let the Jell-O congeal overnight. Serve cold the next day.

I'm sure there are measurements that could be applied, but I just do it now. Go easy on the sugar on the berries since everything else is sweet, but do use some to get them macerating. If you don't like something, don't use it. If you do like something, add more of it. I tried cranberry flavored Jell-O once and it just wasn't the same.

It makes great dessert with leftovers the next few days. We made it for the other wing of the family one year and the uncle went nuts over it. So we left the bowl with them and made more when we got home. :-)

I had the canned stuff growing up as well, but I despise it. I'll take a little bit to nibble on, but I won't take much.

Cranberries go great in quick breads and muffins as well. Look up orange cranberry bread, or cranberry orange bread. I'm sure there are tons.

Time-Life says that a fruit cheese is one step past a butter. It's cooked stiffer and has a higher proportion of sugar. They recommend warming the sugar in a 300 degree oven to reduce cooking time and pouring the preserve into a jar that's coated with a light tasteless oil to make removal easier.

It's stiff enough to be sliced and cut with an aspic or cookie cutter.

Carol

We've always made this too! The difference being we use a whole orange, ground, skin and all. Let's see... halved grapes, ground apples, ground cranberries, celery,sugar, jello and pecan pieces stirred in when the jello is half set.

One year I tried substituting plain gelatin for the jello. That didn't fly. It's like the ubiquitous green bean casserole; when I tried a more contemporary version using fresh beans and substituting for the canned soup, I nearly had a rebellion on my hands.

Deborah

Deborah