Things You'll Need:
- 1 lb loose, ripe cranberries
- 1½ c cranberry juice
- 1 medium-sized orange, juiced and zested
- 1 tsp orange zest
- 1 tsp allspice
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- 3/4-1 c white sugar, depending on taste
- 1-2 Tbsp Grand Marnier liquor
- Citrus zester or fine cheese grater
- Spices
- Three bowls, one for orange juice, one for chilling the sauce and one for serving
- Citrus juicer or spoon
- Serving spoon
- Cranberries
- White sugar
- Orange
- Grand Marnier liquor
- Flexible spatula or long-handled wooden spoon for stirring
- Cranberry juice
- Fine-meshed sieve/strainer
- Medium-sized sauce pan
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Step 1
Choose a pound of whole, ripe cranberries. Look for cranberries that are bright red in color and have taught, shiny skins. If your grocer doesn’t stock loose cranberries, a bag or a carton of cranberries will do, but check the berries before buying.
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Step 2
Select an orange that is heavy in the hand compared to its size, this tells you that the orange has a lot of juice and won’t be dry and mealy inside. Look for sweet oranges, such as Valencia, to offset the tanginess of the cranberries.
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Step 3
When home, wash the cranberries well, picking out any berries that look shriveled and brown in color.
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Step 4
Use a very fine cheese grater, preferably one that’s used for hard cheeses like parmesan, or a dedicated citrus zester to zest the orange. If you don’t have a fine cheese grater or a zester, a regular cheese grater is fine, but you should only make one pass with the orange in any given spot on the orange.
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Step 5
To zest an orange or any citrus fruit, you lightly grate the outside of the orange. You are trying to only grate the top-most orange part of the fruit because this is where all the fragrant oils of the fruit are stored. Don’t grate too deep, into the white pith. If you start to see white under the grater, stop grating because the pith is very bitter and you don’t want any bitterness in the sauce.
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Step 6
Cut the orange in half along the horizontal, between the two ends and pick out any seeds. Juice the orange into a bowl using a wooden citrus juicer or a spoon. Stick the juicer or spoon into the orange flesh and twist and squeeze the juice out until most of the flesh is gone.
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Step 7
If you like pulp, juice directly into the bowl because this will give your cranberry sauce an interesting texture, if you don’t like pulp, juice over a mesh sieve, a strainer, set over a bowl so that the sieve will catch any pulp as it goes through.
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Step 8
Combine the cranberry juice, orange juice, spices and orange zest into a medium sauce pan and heat on medium-high.
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Step 9
When the juices start boiling add the sugar. Use the 3/4 c if you like a tart sauce; the full cup if you like a sweeter sauce.
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Step 10
Bring the mixture to a boil again and stir until the sugar has completely dissolved. Add the cranberries to the sauce pan and lower the heat to a light simmer, medium heat.
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Step 11
Stir the cranberries frequently to ensure the pan doesn’t boil over. Simmer the cranberries until they start to pop open. This reaction begins after approximately five minutes of heating.
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Step 12
Once almost all of the cranberries have burst, taste the mixture and add sugar if it’s too tart. Add the Grand Marnier liquor to the cranberries and stir. Again, taste to see if you would like more liquor.
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Step 13
Set the sauce pan to the back of the stove to cool a bit. Once cooled transfer to a bowl and chill in the refrigerator until it is time to serve. Carefully transfer to a clean serving bowl.
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Step 14
Serve at a cold temperature. The sauce will jell slightly when it’s fully cold.
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Step 15
Garnish with long strips of orange zest or minced orange zest.
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Step 16
Serve and enjoy.
