Whole-Berry Cranberry Sauce (Boston Cooking-School, 1896)
The old New England stovetop sauce: one bag of cranberries boiled ten minutes in sugar syrup until most of the berries pop, then cooled until it sets loose and glossy.
Edited by JP Lambiase
Change the estimate
Swaps change the price only: cook any meat to its own safe temperature. Where these numbers come from
Long before the can, New Englanders boiled cranberries with sugar and served them with meat. John Josselyn wrote in 1672 that "the Indians and English" both used cranberries this way and called it "a delicate Sauce, especially for roasted Mutton" (New-England's Rarities Discovered, Project Gutenberg:). In 1796 Amelia Simmons's "American Cookery", often called the first American cookbook, told cooks to serve a stuffed roast turkey with "boiled onions and cramberry-sauce, mangoes, pickles or celery" (Project Gutenberg:). She gave no recipe for the sauce itself; her cranberry entry is a tart, the berries "stewed, strained and sweetened" and baked in pastry. A full, measured recipe is in Fannie Farmer's "Boston Cooking-School Cook Book" (copyright from 1896; Project Gutenberg's text is the 1906 printing): three cups of cranberries, one and a quarter cups of sugar and a cup of boiling water, covered and boiled ten minutes. That is, almost exactly, the recipe still printed on cranberry bags today. Cranberries became a farmed crop in 1816, when Captain Henry Hall of Dennis, Massachusetts, began transplanting vines and spreading sand on them (Cape Cod Cranberry Growers' Association:).
📖 Origin story: Why Is Canned Cranberry Sauce a Ridged Log? A Short History → 📖 Origin story: Where Did Parker House Rolls Come From? →
Why it works the kitchen science
Syrup first, berries second
Dissolving the sugar in boiling water before the berries go in means every berry cooks in hot syrup and the skins split evenly, so you get a mix of whole and burst berries in a glossy jelly.
Ten minutes is enough
Cranberries are full of pectin and acid, so even a short boil sets the sauce as it cools; ATK warns that cooking too long turns it into a mushy mash.
🧰 You'll need 4 items
Everything the steps call for. Tick off what you have before you start.
Pans and pots
Tools
Step by step
- Step 1
Rinse the cranberries in a colander and pick out any soft or shriveled ones.
- Step 2
Put the sugar and boiling water in a 3-quart saucepan and stir over medium heat about 1 minute, until the sugar dissolves.
- Step 3
Add the cranberries and bring back to a boil over medium-high heat, about 3 minutes.
- Step 4
Cover, leaving the lid slightly ajar so it cannot boil over, lower the heat to medium and boil gently 10 minutes, until most of the berries have popped. Lift the lid to stir once or twice and watch the foam.
✓ What it should look like - Step 5
Skim off the pink foam with a spoon, the way Farmer says.
- Step 6
Pour into a serving bowl and cool at least 1 hour; the sauce thickens as it cools. Serve at room temperature or cold.
Whole-Berry Cranberry Sauce (Boston Cooking-School, 1896)
Serves 8 · about 2 1/2 cups · 20 min total
- 1 (12-ounce) bag fresh or frozen cranberries (about 3 cups), rinsed and picked over
- 1 1/4 cups sugar
- 1 cup boiling water
- Pinch of salt (optional, ours)
Equipment: 3-quart saucepan, Measuring cups and spoons, Mixing bowls, Colander
Method
- Rinse the cranberries in a colander and pick out any soft or shriveled ones.
- Put the sugar and boiling water in a 3-quart saucepan and stir over medium heat about 1 minute, until the sugar dissolves.
- Add the cranberries and bring back to a boil over medium-high heat, about 3 minutes.
- Cover, leaving the lid slightly ajar so it cannot boil over, lower the heat to medium and boil gently 10 minutes, until most of the berries have popped. Lift the lid to stir once or twice and watch the foam.
- Skim off the pink foam with a spoon, the way Farmer says.
- Pour into a serving bowl and cool at least 1 hour; the sauce thickens as it cools. Serve at room temperature or cold.
Adapted from "Cranberry Sauce" in Fannie Farmer, "The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book" (Project Gutenberg text of the 1906 printing). Farmer's 3 cups of berries is about one 12-ounce bag; her amounts are kept. Times are hers; the heat levels and the cooling time are ours, checked against America's Test Kitchen's "Basic Cranberry Sauce" (Cook's Country, 2009; posted July 16, 2011), which uses 3/4 cup water and simmers about 5 minutes. Project Gutenberg. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
Tips
- Make-ahead: make it Wednesday or earlier. ATK says cranberry sauce keeps up to 1 week in the refrigerator.
- For a thicker sauce, use 3/4 cup water, ATK's fix for the runny bag recipe.
- Frozen berries need 1 to 2 minutes longer (ATK).
- Stir in grated orange zest after cooking if you like; that is a modern twist, not in Farmer.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Native Americans made cranberry sauce. Disputed: Josselyn (1672) says "the Indians and English" boiled cranberries with sugar for sauce, and the University of Kansas project says berries were boiled into sauce or mixed with maple syrup; Wikipedia's claim that cranberries given to French settlers in 1606 were sweetened with maple sugar has no citation, and the 1621 table has no written record of cranberries.
- Cranberry sauce has gone with turkey since the first Thanksgiving. Disputed: Wikipedia says no primary source mentions cranberries at the 1621 meal. The pairing is Documented in print by 1796 (Simmons).
- Amelia Simmons wrote the first American cookbook. Documented as the usual description (Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg call it the first cookbook by an American); earlier cookbooks printed in America were British reprints.
- The cranberry was named for the crane. Folklore: the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers' Association says settlers thought the flower looked like a sandhill crane's head; Josselyn called it "Cran Berry, or Bear Berry, because Bears use much to feed upon them".
- The Wampanoag have harvested cranberries for 12,000 years. Disputed: the growers' association says so; we found no archaeological source for the number.
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