Easy Homemade Cranberry Jam Recipe - An Italian in my Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

Easy Homemade Cranberry Jam Recipe - An Italian in my Kitchen? ›

How to make Cranberry Jam. In a large pot add the cranberries, sugar, water, orange juice, zest and cinnamon, stir to combine. On high/medium heat, bring the ingredients to a boil stirring occasionally, lower heat to a simmer and cook for 15-20 minutes or until it thickens and all the berries have popped.

While both are cranberry-based spreads, they differ in texture and sweetness. Cranberry jam tends to have a smoother, more spreadable consistency compared to the thicker cranberry sauce. Moreover, jam typically includes a higher sugar content, making it sweeter.

Another possibility is that the cranberries need to boil for longer, releasing their pectin and ensuring a jelly consistency. Still stumped? Try reducing the sauce down even further so more of the liquid cooks off and the mixture thickens.

Cranberries are high in pectin, which helps them set naturally into a jelly without the need for any other thickeners. Orange zest and cinnamon are natural flavor pairings for cranberries, enhancing and complementing their tartness.

Combine cranberries, white sugar, turbinado sugar, water, orange zest, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice, and pepper in a large pot over medium heat. Simmer, stirring frequently, until sugar dissolves and cranberries pop, 10 to 12 minutes. Blend cranberry jam into desired consistency using an immersion blender.

Best Jellied Cranberry Sauce: Ocean Spray Jellied Cranberry Sauce. The Ocean Spray brand is pretty much synonymous with all things cranberry, so it's not really a surprise that they have their cranberry sauce dialed in.

While there are some editors who prefer homemade cranberry sauce, the canned variety also has quite a following. "There's something so beautifully perfect about the texture of canned cranberry sauce, and none of those homemade mess will ever compete," says Senior Digital Food Editor Kimberly Holland.

Cook the jam, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon or spatula at first and more frequently as juices thicken until most of the liquid has evaporated and the fruit has begun to break down, about 25 to 35 minutes.

Lack of acidity: Acids like lemon juice help lower the jam mixture's pH, which reacts with the natural or added pectin to help thicken the jam. If a jam recipe doesn't call for lemon juice or lime juice, it could rely on another ingredient, like added pectin, to set the jam.

Dear Evelyn: I had the same problem when I first started making my own cranberry sauce. I found out that you should cook them just until they pop. Further cooking will make them bitter, and once that happens, you need to start again.

Who should avoid pectin? ›

Some people have reported mild stomach cramps and diarrhea while taking MCP. People who are allergic to citrus fruits should avoid MCP. Also, MCP may interfere with certain cancer treatments and should not be taken without supervision. Pectin can reduce the body's ability to absorb beta-carotene, an important nutrient.

Lemons, and other sour citrus fruits, contain fairly high amounts of pectin. However the pectin is found mainly in the skin and membranes of the fruit rather than in the juice. Consequently adding lemon juice to regular sugar for the chilli jam will not help it to set.

A review of 43 studies showed that 9 grams of pectin per day for 7 weeks lowered both systolic and diastolic blood pressure — the top and bottom numbers in a reading, respectively. This effect was especially pronounced in people with high blood pressure ( 22 ).

Some people have reservations about using pectin, but it's incredibly helpful, especially for someone new to the process. It's totally possible to make jams and jellies without using store-bought pectin, but it's much harder to get the right consistency and it takes longer, too.

Consider a chutney with fresh and dried fruit, a tangy citrus marmalade, and even bacon-onion "jam." The recipes we've gathered are sweet and tart or savory and aromatic, they include the spices, nuts, and deep flavors we associate with autumn and winter, so you won't miss the cranberries one bit.

If you don't like the taste of cranberries, but still want a sweet and tangy sauce, try a peach-mango-orange sauce. Smuckers has a peach-mango preserves, which you can heat up in a saucepan with some orange juice, a drizzle of honey, and a splash of apple cider vinegar and bourbon.

Calling this dish a “sauce” is a bit of a misnomer, as cranberry sauce is actually a simple fruit jam. Cranberries are naturally high in pectin (a naturally occuring gel). When cranberries are cooked with sugar and acid (such as orange or lemon juice), the pectin is released and gels the fruit.

Seems this is the cranberry sauce for people who don't like cranberries – it's super sweet and tastes more like strawberry or raspberry. Its texture's not bad, though, landing somewhere on the scale between a sauce and a jam. Beware those who don't have a sweet tooth: you may find it all a little too sickly.

Jam is made from mashed fruit. Jelly is made from just the juice of the fruit. Sauce is made from mashed fruit but uses less pectin than jam and is less jelled. Syrup is made from either mashed fruit or just the juice of the fruit, but uses even less pectin than sauce so it is slightly jelled and pourable.

Cranberry sauce can be served either as a gooey liquid or as a solid jelly. The jellied version is solid enough to retain the shape of the container in which it's placed whereas the sauce version is much more fluid. The difference between the fluid sauce and the jelly versions comes down to pectin.