Canning: Festive Cranberries

My favorite thing to spread on a sandwich is cranberry sauce. Turkey and cranberries, they just really go well together if you ask me. For my second canning experience I thought making my own cranberry sauce would be perfect. Every time I want to make a sandwich, I can have delicious cranberry to go with it. YUM!

To be honest, I was a little surprised at how easy the cranberry sauce recipe was. Boil water, mix in sugar, add cranberries and can. That’s it! So, so simple. It was fun to hear the cranberries pop as they heated up, and let’s face it they just look festive floating in the pot of water.

Something I learned at my Canning 101 class was that some fruits, like cranberries, naturally have pectin in their skin so when they pop they release their pectin so there is no need to add the store bought kind. Isn’t that neat?

After about 15 minutes of boiling the cranberry sauce should have “gelled” which would make it ready for the canning process. It took almost twice as long as the recipe suggested. I used the spoon test and the refrigerator test to make sure it was the right consistency. Once it was, I poured the sauce into sterilized jars and set it to process for 15 minutes.

The result was delicious! I’ve had it on my turkey sandwiches and wraps since I made it a few weeks ago. Can’t wait to serve it for Thanksgiving dinner.