Sugared cranberries are the easiest fancy garnish ever

Make sugared cranberries to top your next holiday dessert and you’ll be left with little red jewels of sweet tart joy.

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Or so I thought. I wanted to make a simple batch of sugared cranberries for my mini cranberry tarts. What happened was that I had to fend off my family from eating ALL my garnishes. I barely saved enough berries to top my tarts, LOL.

It turns out that these little sugar syrup soaked berries are really really tasty on their own. Like candied orange peel and deviled eggs how ever many you make is exactly how many will be eaten.

The BEST part about sugaring cranberries is that it takes about 5 minutes of active time to put together. I like to make small batches of them since they don’t stay fresh as long as candied orange peel, but feel free to make as many as you’d like. They’re beautiful for putting on top of mini cranberry tarts, cranberry curd cookies or just eating straight out of hand (my kids’ preferred choice).

Sugared cranberries

Sugared cranberries vs. the viral TikTok powdered sugar cranberries

The type of sugared cranberries here is not the one you’ll find with powdered sugar from TikTok. Those ones have you soaking cranberries in a flavorful liquid like orange juice and then tossing them in powdered sugar as a snack.

While I’m sure those taste fine, I want the glassy cranberries that come from briefly mixing raw cranberries in a simple syrup. After the cranberries are tacky, you simply toss them in some more granulated sugar.

Why you’ll love sugared cranberries

1. Delicious: These little guys are easy to eat. The sugar syrup tames the tannic bracing tartness that’s natural to cranberries. Inevitably too, there are some cranberries that will burst, making them not the best for garnishes. Oh no, you’ll have to eat the imperfect ones!
2. 5 minutes: These are SO fast to make. While candied orange is a bit of a project you can do in the middle of other tasks, these actually take 5 minutes to put together. And a lazy 5 minutes at that. When I say they’re easy, they are truly easy.
3. Versatile: There’s about 16 different Christmas cookies I can rattle off in the top of my head that you could garnish these sugared cranberries with. Also, you could put them on charcuterie plates or pretty much any place where you want a little extra color.

Can you use frozen cranberries to make sugared cranberries?

I would not. When you defrost any kind of berry, they tend to release a lot of water. Water is the enemy of good sugared cranberries. If you only have frozen cranberries, use them to make a batch of cranberry curd instead.

Tips for making the best sugared cranberries

1. Dry the berries: place dry berries in the sugar syrup. If the berries have any extra water on them after you wash them, the syrup won’t cling well to the surface.
2. Use firm berries: Make sure your cranberries are fresh. If they have any soft spots, they’ll likely burst in the sugar syrup.
3. Use less water: if you use about half the amount of water as you do sugar, you won’t have to wait for the cranberries to dry before tossing them in sugar.
4. Reduce your sugar syrup: Additionally, if you allow your sugar syrup to simmer for 1-2 minutes, the amount of water will be even less, making for berries that are ready to toss in sugar in just a few minutes.
5. Do not cook the berries: Cranberries are sensitive to heat. To keep the berries whole, only leave them in the hot syrup long enough to coat. Any longer, and they’re likely to burst. Go any longer than that and you should make cranberry curd.
6. Turn them out immediately: the thick syrup will harden quickly on the berries. If you don’t get them onto parchment quickly, it’s likely that the sugar syrup will be too thick on the berries. You can see that in my picture how some of them got too much syrup. Live and learn and practice!
7. Go by feel: A lot of recipes for sugared cranberries out there tell you that you need to let the berries dry on parchment for an hour–that’s silly. With my method, they will take just a couple minutes. Feel for a slight tackiness–like if you got melted popsicle on your hands and it dried. When you feel that, the cranberries are ready to toss in granulated sugar.

How to add some extra flavor to your cranberries

• Orange: You can either put a couple pieces of orange peel in the sugar syrup as it’s coming to a boil or use orange juice in place of water for the syrup.
• Vanilla: Toss the cranberries in granulated sugar with a spoonful of vanilla sugar

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