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Cranberry Jelly
Look over carefully and wash four cups cranberries. Place in a saucepan, pour over them one cup of boiling water and let boil for twenty minutes. Press through a sieve, stir in two cups sugar, return to fire and let cook five minutes longer. Turn into fancy molds or individual cups.
A straight fruit jelly that relies entirely on the cranberry's own pectin and acid, so no commercial pectin, gelatin or lemon is wanted. The whole thing takes about half an hour.
- QuantitiesFour cups of whole cranberries is about 1 lb, or one and a third of the standard 12-oz bags. With two cups of sugar it makes something in the region of two to three cups of jelly, enough for six to eight servings alongside poultry.
- The twenty minutesLonger than the berries need to burst — they collapse in about eight to ten minutes — but the extra time softens the skins so more pulp goes through the sieve. Keep the heat low once they pop and stir, because a scant cup of water with a pound of fruit scorches easily.
- Pressing through a sieveA food mill with the medium plate does this in a minute and catches the skins and seeds. If using a sieve, work it while the pulp is hot; cooled cranberry purée sets in the mesh and is miserable to push through.
- The five minutes after sugarThis is the hinge. The sugar wants to dissolve completely and the mixture to come back to a hard boil, or the jelly is likely to stay syrupy. If it looks loose at five minutes, boil on; around 220F on a thermometer is the usual setting point for a preserve of this kind at sea level.
- MoldsRinse the molds with cold water and do not dry them; the film of water lets the set jelly slip out cleanly. Small ramekins, teacups or a loaf pan all work, though the recipe itself asks for fancy molds or individual cups.
- KeepingThis is a fresh jelly, not a canned one. It has no processing step and no headspace instructions, so refrigerate it and use it within a week or two.
- Why it is under CandiesWhatever the reason for the placement, nothing about the method is candy-making; treat it as a table jelly for roast meat.
Cranberries are native to the bogs of northeastern North America, and the sauce made from them was one of the few genuinely indigenous American preparations to hold a fixed place on the nineteenth-century table. Commercial cultivation on Cape Cod is generally traced to the early 1800s, when growers found that sanding the wild bogs improved the crop; by the time The Butterick Cook Book appeared in 1911, cranberries were shipped nationally and a molded jelly was expected with turkey and game. The recipe's confidence that the fruit will set on its own is well founded — cranberries are unusually high in both pectin and acid, the two things a jelly needs, which is why this one calls for nothing but berries, water and sugar. Turning it into fancy molds rather than serving it from a bowl is a period habit: molded, sliced and glossy food signaled a competent kitchen.