Sugared Cranberries

These turned out perfect. Everyone loved them. Will make again .

Admittedly I did not follow the prep time on these cranberries (not on purpose, just forgot to do it the night before) and I'm sure they would taste even better if you actually follow this recipe, BUT I did love these little treats. I dunked my cranberries in the syrup mixture and let marinate at room temp for only about 15 minutes, then I used a slotted spoon to remove the cranberries and spread them out on a parchment lined sheet. I then sprinkled with sparkled sprinkles and let air dry for about 20 minutes. While still a bit tacky when I packaged as a part of my homemade goodie bags for the holidays, I tried a few to make sure I wasn't giving away something that didn't taste good. The result: loved the tang with the sugar so who cares if they are a little messy when they taste that good? I will definitely make again (this time hopefully remembering to prep correctly and I'm sure they will be just as good if not better). Enjoy!

These were great and easy. I added orange rind which enhanced the flavor.

The cranberries I get are in a bag, hard like little marbles. I found the best thing to do was to blanch them in the sugar-water-spices mixture. I used regular sugar with no problem. Put the sugar in a sealable plastic bag and spoon drained berries in a couple of spoonfuls at a time and shake. The cranberries need to be wet and sticky for the sugar to adhere. The trick is to let them sit out to dry thoroughly. Also, when your coating sugar begins to clump, just dump it into the sugar-water mixture. You can use it for another batch. I nuked my second batch in left-over sugar water and they turned out fine. They are great as an ice-cream topper and on hot and cold cereal or just as a snack.

I was careful to not boil the water more than a simmer as the recipe states but my cranberries still popped. Very misleading and disappointing.