This was a hit on Thanksgiving, a nice change of pace. While I liked it , it was a bit tangy for me as I am not a big fan of citrus zest, but it had a great holiday flavor that my family loved. Make sure you taste throughout; you may want to add a little more brown sugar. And, also, I had forgotten that cranberries float...just add enough water until they would be covered if they didn't float. I don't think you can really mess up this really great recipe, so don't worry too much about that step. Also, it makes A LOT of sauce.
Oh my goodness this was incredible! I've never made cranberry sauce from scratch before... but no more canned stuff for me. This stuff was so good I almost felt like eating it like soup! Got rave review from my family too and was plenty for my crowd of 30 people! Thanks for sharing the recipe!
This sauce has a very "robust" flavor that was too strong for some of our family - but I enjoyed it. My only warning is that you need to hold the cranberries down with your hand(s) or something else to determine when you've added enough water. I forgot that cranberries float and added too much before I realized they were floating which resulted in additional cooking time to get the extra liquid to evaporate.
This was my first time making cranberry sauce from scratch. This turned out fabulous! It ended up cooking for about 2 hours but well worth it. Won't be buying that canned muck again...:)
I'm giving this one star simply because this is much too long to cook any cranberry sauce. Cranberries become bitter if they are cooked after they pop. I'm guessing that's why the recipe calls for twice as much sugar as any other recipe I've seen for cranberry sauce. One comment even stated they were planning to add more sugar next time! Save yourself the trouble and simmer it for no more than 10 minutes after the berries pop. And add 1 cup of sugar instead!
Delicious and a great alternative to canned cranberry sauce. My family was relieved to not see the can-shaped gelationous blob this year. Be careful how much water you put in it and I like to only put in one cinnamon stick. Other than that even the cranberry sauce haters went crazy for this recipe. The excess was used on rolls-- I even saw my grandfather put some on the ham.
My mother requested this recipe for Thanksgiving and after a first disasterous attempt in the crockpot (don't cook cranberries in the crockpot!!!!) it came out really well. My husband loved it as is but my mom said she would have preferred it without the cinnamon. I'll be trying it again at Christmas without the cinnamon - overall 4 stars from everyone. Delicious and easy.
I made this for Thanksgiving. Other reviews said it took about 3 hrs to thicken. It did; however I think it wouldn't have taken so long if I hadn't lowered it so low. The recipe said "simmer" so to me that means low. On my stove I put it on "2 " but at 3 hrs cooking it still wasn't thick so I turned it to "5." It thickened almost immediately. Next time I'm only lowering to "5" and I'll bet it doesn't take so long. It needed a little more sugar than listed as it was rather tart. Everyone liked it though and it was fun to make.
I've made this for thanksgiving several years in a row. It is delicious but also super sweet and tangy. If I make it again this year I'll probably scale back on the sugar. UPDATE: I made the following changes for thanksgiving 2011: omitted the water slightly reduced the OJ used about 1.5c brown sugar and reduced the simmering time to about 20-25 minutes. SO MUCH BETTER! Because you're starting with less liquid you don't have to let it cook for so long to thicken up. I think I could have reduced the brown sugar even further so maybe that will be something to try next year.
