Since we grow cranberries, and I had fresh berries waiting to be used, I decided I would make a few batches of jellied cranberry sauce. I've been saving 24 ounce Clausen pickle jars to store my sauce. But I plan on making more sauce, so I will go to the hardware store and pick up a few cases of Ball canning jars.
I took several pictures to share with all of you while I was making my sauce. Nothing beats home made cranberry sauce, but if you have to buy it..we sell our cranberries to Ocean Spray. Hint, Hint. :-)
Here is the recipe I used from the Ocean Spray website, but if you do a google search you will find many recipes.
Ocean Spray Jellied Cranberry Sauce Recipe
Before starting wash and sterilize your canning jars.
I started off picking out any bad berries, then rinsed the cranberries in a strainer.
2 cups of berries, 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar will yield 1 cup of cranberry sauce.
Photo below..cranberries and water in pan. Cook until the berries soften and burst open.
When the skins on the berries have popped. Dump the juice and berries into a sieve or a food mill that is straddling a large pot. I used a sieve with legs. With the wooden pestel keep mashing the berries inside the sieve againist the sides until you only have dried skins left. Discard the skins. (chickens love eating the skins)
I continued mashing the cooked cranberries, until all I had left was the skins and seeds. I scraped the outsides of the sieve frequently to collect as much of the sauce as I could. You could use a food mill to seperate the skins from the cooked pulp of the berries. Discard the skins and seeds. The sieve and pestle that I used to mash the berries, had once been my grandmother's.
Now, place the pan with the cranberry water/juice and pureed cranberries on the stove and add the sugar. Stir well. You can tell when your sauce starts to thicken and forms a coating on a metal spoon and drips off very slowly from the spoon that the sauce is ready.
Skim the foam from the top of the berries that forms in the pan and put it in a dish to discard as you don't want foam mixed in your sauce. .
foam that needs to be discarded
after the sauce is in the jar...take a knife and gently move it back and forth to remove any air bubbles. Take a damp piece of cheese cloth and wipe around the lip of the jar and the top edge.
I then filled 3-24 ounce jars with sauce leaving 1/2 inch head space at the top of the jars. I melted paraffin wax in a coffee can on top of my gas stove. When the wax was melted I then put a 1/4-1/2 inch coating of wax over the sauce making sure that the wax covered the sides of the jars well so no air could get to the sauce.
I still need to make some more jellied sauce, but I also plan on making some whole berry sauce, and then cranberry orange relish. Making sauce doesn't take that long. You should give it a try.
P.S..it is much easier just canning the sauce in Ball jars with lids and screw covers using the same method as above just not using the wax.
Water bath the sealed jars. Don't screw the caps on too tightly. I place the jars in the boiling water for 15 minutes, remove from water with tongs and almost immediately you will hear the covers popping/sealing the lids. Let cool and loosen covers or remove. They sell plastic screw covers to use once the lid has been opened on the jar.
Most of the time I make a larger batch. 12 cups cleaned/rinsed berries, 6 cups water, and 6 cups of sugar for my recipe and I get about 30 half pint jars of cranberry sauce.
I took several pictures to share with all of you while I was making my sauce. Nothing beats home made cranberry sauce, but if you have to buy it..we sell our cranberries to Ocean Spray. Hint, Hint. :-)
Here is the recipe I used from the Ocean Spray website, but if you do a google search you will find many recipes.
Ocean Spray Jellied Cranberry Sauce Recipe
Before starting wash and sterilize your canning jars.
I started off picking out any bad berries, then rinsed the cranberries in a strainer.
2 cups of berries, 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar will yield 1 cup of cranberry sauce.
Photo below..cranberries and water in pan. Cook until the berries soften and burst open.
When the skins on the berries have popped. Dump the juice and berries into a sieve or a food mill that is straddling a large pot. I used a sieve with legs. With the wooden pestel keep mashing the berries inside the sieve againist the sides until you only have dried skins left. Discard the skins. (chickens love eating the skins)
I continued mashing the cooked cranberries, until all I had left was the skins and seeds. I scraped the outsides of the sieve frequently to collect as much of the sauce as I could. You could use a food mill to seperate the skins from the cooked pulp of the berries. Discard the skins and seeds. The sieve and pestle that I used to mash the berries, had once been my grandmother's.
Now, place the pan with the cranberry water/juice and pureed cranberries on the stove and add the sugar. Stir well. You can tell when your sauce starts to thicken and forms a coating on a metal spoon and drips off very slowly from the spoon that the sauce is ready.
Skim the foam from the top of the berries that forms in the pan and put it in a dish to discard as you don't want foam mixed in your sauce. .
foam that needs to be discardedafter the sauce is in the jar...take a knife and gently move it back and forth to remove any air bubbles. Take a damp piece of cheese cloth and wipe around the lip of the jar and the top edge.
I then filled 3-24 ounce jars with sauce leaving 1/2 inch head space at the top of the jars. I melted paraffin wax in a coffee can on top of my gas stove. When the wax was melted I then put a 1/4-1/2 inch coating of wax over the sauce making sure that the wax covered the sides of the jars well so no air could get to the sauce.
I still need to make some more jellied sauce, but I also plan on making some whole berry sauce, and then cranberry orange relish. Making sauce doesn't take that long. You should give it a try.
P.S..it is much easier just canning the sauce in Ball jars with lids and screw covers using the same method as above just not using the wax.
Water bath the sealed jars. Don't screw the caps on too tightly. I place the jars in the boiling water for 15 minutes, remove from water with tongs and almost immediately you will hear the covers popping/sealing the lids. Let cool and loosen covers or remove. They sell plastic screw covers to use once the lid has been opened on the jar.
Most of the time I make a larger batch. 12 cups cleaned/rinsed berries, 6 cups water, and 6 cups of sugar for my recipe and I get about 30 half pint jars of cranberry sauce.
2 comments:
Oh yummy! They look great!
Ohh Elaine, It looks SO good!!! *Hugs*
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