How to cook cranberries at home? Cranberries are a storehouse of vitamins and good health. With its help, medicinal tinctures, delicious fruit drinks, and various alcoholic beverages are prepared. You can use this berry in completely different ways.
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Hot drinks from cranberries
Warming tincture
Cranberry tinctures attract many people with their ease of preparation, pleasant taste, and the unique properties of this berry. Representatives of the weaker sex will especially appreciate such drinks. Cranberry, although it does not reduce the degree, greatly softens the taste of alcohol and practically eliminates its pungent odor. So how to make a cranberry drink?
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Most often, store-bought vodka becomes the basis. What will the berries themselves be like?: freshly picked, frozen or harvested after the first frost, it doesn't matter. The main thing is that the cranberries are not spoiled.
Cranberry vodka
Classic variant
Required products:
- Cranberries - 0.5 kg
- Water - 100 ml (optional)
- Vodka - 1 l
- Sugar - 2 tbsp (optional)
How to cook:
- Prepare berries: sort out and wash. After that, pour them into a bottle.
- With a wooden mortar (you can use a rolling pin) crush the berries to a puree state.
- Pour vodka into the resulting mass.
- The bottle must be covered with a nylon cap and placed in a dark place. Be sure to shake the jar every few days. It is important that the room is warm.
- After 2 weeks, we clean the tincture from the pulp: we pass it through a cotton filter and gauze. The pulp must be squeezed out.
- In general, cranberry vodka is ready. At this stage, the drink is sour, and if this does not suit you, the preparation process is complemented by the following steps.
- We cook sugar syrup. To do this, mix sugar, put on fire, and wait until it boils. After that, put on low heat and boil for 5 minutes, while you need to remove the foam. Let the syrup cool down, then add it to the cranberry vodka. Sugar syrup can be replaced with liquid honey. You can’t cook it, otherwise all the useful properties of this product will disappear.
- We close the bottle with a lid and send the tincture to stand for another 1-2 days.
Cranberry vodka prepared according to this recipe, as a rule, has a strength of 32-36%. You can store it for 3 years, for storage we choose a cool place, hidden from sunlight.
Quick Recipe
Cooking process
If the previous recipe takes about a week to prepare, then using this method you can get delicious cranberry vodka in 3-4 hours. Its disadvantage is that during the processing of the berries themselves, many useful properties disappear.
Required products:
- Beak - 0.5 kg
- Boiled water - 250 ml
- Sugar - 250 g
- Vodka - 1.2 l
Cooking method:
- Cranberries need to be poured over with boiling water, poured into a bottle and covered with sugar.
- Using a wooden mortar, mash the berries until smooth.
- Pour vodka into the resulting mixture, and close the bottle for 2 hours with a nylon cap.
- Pass the liquid through cheesecloth, and squeeze the pulp well.
- After that, add hot water (40-40o) to the tincture, mix well.
- Wait for the liquid to cool and pour it into bottles. The cork should be tightly closed, then the drink can be stored in the refrigerator or cellar for about a year. Vodka turns out 30-33% of the fortress.
Recipe "Everything in a glass"
Based on the name, you can understand that all the ingredients in this recipe are added in equal proportions.
- Now prepare the sugar syrup. Let it cool to room temperature and pour it into a bottle. We put vodka in there.
- Only after that we prepare the berries themselves. We wash and sort through the cranberries (we throw out all the rotten berries), crush it to a puree state and pour it into a jar of vodka with syrup.
- We cover the jar with a nylon lid and leave it in a cool dark place to infuse for a month.
- In order for vodka to turn out transparent and clean from cake, it must be well filtered. We use gauze for this. The cake must be given away. We pass to the second stage of filtration, for this you need to take a cloth more densely and pass the drink through it. The third and final stage of filtration is a cotton filter. Put the cotton wool tightly into the funnel and pass the vodka through it.
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cranberries in alcohol
Beautiful cranberries
Making cranberry tinctures with alcohol is a little more difficult, but in general the process is not much different from making drinks with vodka. For each of them, the berries have to be crushed, which is why the drink turns cloudy. To make the tincture transparent and clean, it can be filtered several times. If this option is not suitable, the berries can not be crushed, but gently pierced with a needle in several places. In this form, they will also give juice and the drink will turn out to be no less tasty.
To enhance the cranberry flavor and make it more intense, you can wait until the berries begin to ferment. To do this, crush the berries into porridge and cover them with sugar. The resulting mixture is left for a couple of days, until foam forms. After that, you can add alcohol, or other alcohol.
Recipe for alcohol
Alcohol must be diluted to 45%
Required products:
- Alcohol (45%) - 2 l
- Cranberries - 0.4 kg
- Sugar - 3 tbsp. l
Cooking method:
- If the cranberry is homemade, leave it to ferment, as described above.
- When the berries have fermented (if they are store-bought, just make a puree and use it), pour half the alcohol there. Alcohol must be diluted to 45% in advance. After that, we send the liquid to infuse for 2 weeks.
- After this time, the setting is drained into a separate container. Pour the cake a second time with 1 liter of alcohol. We leave it for a week.
- Now mix the two portions together and filter the liquid through a bandage, gauze or cotton filter.
- To improve the taste, you can add the following ingredients to the tincture (optional):
- Kolgan ground - 1 tsp;
- grated lemon peel;
- Honey - 2 tbsp;
- Sugar or sugar syrup (fructose can be used).
- If the ingredients were added, leave the tincture for another 7 days.
Some more helpful tips:
- For lovers of sweet drinks, it is recommended to use 1 kg of berries, and pour 500 ml of alcohol into it. After 5 days, drain the liquid and pour another half liter of alcohol, leave for 3 days.
- Drain, mix the two resulting tinctures, dilute them with 1 liter of water and add to the drink obtained immediately.
- In order for the fortress to be at least 30%, and sugar 20%, you need to dilute it with sugar syrup (600 ml.). Therefore, add it to 1 liter of water and pour it into the tincture. The amount of drink should be brought to 3 liters.
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Pouring is a softer and more pleasant drink, unlike vodka. The recipes below will give real pleasure to everyone who tries this liqueur. Its taste is tender, sweet and sour, with a pleasant aroma and beautiful, rich red color.
Cranberry liqueur
It is recommended to use alcohol to prepare this drink.. It is bred up to 70%, because it is believed that it is this strength of the base that helps the taste of the berry to fully open up. Sometimes gin is used as an alcohol base, which will be a great experiment.
Although the cranberry itself has a unique taste and aroma, in order to improve the taste of the drink, many people prefer to emphasize the merits of the berry with additional ingredients: cinnamon, vanilla, galangal root, ginger and even allspice. These are far from all the ingredients that can emphasize the taste of the liqueur. You can always show your imagination and try something of your own.
Recipe 1
Ingredients:
- Cranberries (fresh or frozen) - 600 g;
- Alcohol 70% - 0.5 l;
- Sugar (preferably cane) - 500 g;
- Liquid fragrant honey - 250 g;
- Water - half a glass;
- Vanilla (optional)
Cooking method.
- Fresh berries, to save them from bitterness, you need to put in the freezer for 2-3 hours.
After that, we take out the berries, defrost and grind with a wooden mortar, blender or meat grinder
- Add vanilla. Pour all this with alcohol and leave to infuse for 14 days in a cool place, without access to direct sunlight.
- Filter the liquid. We prepare sugar syrup, or melt honey, dilute them with water. After that, let it cool down and mix in cranberry tincture.
- We are waiting for another 2 weeks, after which we re-filter the liquid through gauze or a cotton filter (you can use coffee or paper filters). It is advisable to repeat the procedure several times. The longer the tincture sits after that, the tastier it will be. It is recommended to take the first sample after 1-2 months.
Recipe 2
Ingredients:
- Cranberry - 1 kg
- Sugar - 0.5 kg
- Vodka (40%) - 750 ml
- Alcohol (95%) - 750 ml
Cooking method:
Wash the berries, sort them out and send them to the freezer for several days
- After that, crush them to a puree state with a mortar or blender.
- The resulting slurry is transferred to a large bottle and covered with sugar. We leave for a day so that the sugar melts and the juice comes out.
- We mix alcohol, vodka and berries. Leave to infuse for 1 month in a cool dark place.
- After this period, the liqueur is drained and filtered. A sieve or gauze is immediately used. After that, the liquid is passed through a cotton filter (you can take coffee).
- We leave the liqueur to infuse for another 3 months. Strongly strong liquor can be diluted with water.
Cranberry liqueur with raspberries
Prepared raspberries for juicing
Ingredients:
- Fresh cranberries - 2 kg
- Honey - 1/2 cup
- Vodka (moonshine) - 1 l
- Raspberry juice - 1/2 cup
Cooking method:
- Cranberries need to be kept in the freezer for several days. After that, pour the berries into a suitable container and fill them with an alcohol base.
- The liqueur should be infused for a month in a cool dark place. Every day, the jar must be shaken.
- A month later, add raspberry juice and honey to the jar. Let's wait another month.
- Filter the drink and bottle it. After that, the liqueur must be kept for another 60-90 days.
- From time to time it is necessary to remove from the sediment until the liquid becomes clear.
Medicinal liqueur with cranberries and plum brandy
Ready liqueur
Ingredients:
- Cranberry - 1 kg
- Sugar - 750 g
- Slivovitz - 200 ml
- Alcohol (95%) - 750 ml
- Honey - 500 ml
Cooking method:
- So that the berries do not give bitterness, we keep them for several days in the freezer. Defrost, pour into a large bottle and fill with alcohol. Dilute the liquid with 300 ml of water.
- We leave the jar to infuse for 3 weeks. Shake the liquid every 2-3 days.
- We dilute sugar and honey in warm water, make a sweet syrup. We send the resulting liquid to the tincture, mix well. Next, add plum brandy to the tincture.
- For a good maceration, leave the liqueur to infuse for 3-6 months. The longer, the tastier and healthier the infusion will be.
- Filter the drink: pass the liquid through cheesecloth or thick cloth. Pour into bottles. It is recommended to use tincture for headaches. Or with colds. The drink improves blood circulation.
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Moonshine from cranberries
Moonshine on cranberries
Cranberry tinctures are prepared for a long time, especially on moonshine. Of course, a pleasant, mild taste fully compensates for such an expectation. But what if the guests are about to arrive, but there is nothing to put on the table? Cranberry moonshine recipes are different, quick and “classic”, and we will talk about all of them.
Quick Recipe
Store the finished product preferably in a dark place.
Ingredients (1/1/1):
- Sugar
- Cranberry
- Moonshine
Cooking method:
- First of all, preparation of berries. Pour boiling water over them for a few minutes. Cranberries are ready when the skin starts to crack. Did you notice it? Drain the water and sprinkle the berries with sugar, mix well.
- The resulting mixture must be poured with moonshine and closed with a lid. We put the bottle in a cool dark place for 3-5 hours. After that, pour the contents of the jar into a pan of a suitable size and cook until the sugar melts.
- You need to cook on low heat. It is important that the liquid does not come to a boil, otherwise the alcohol will begin to evaporate and the moonshine will lose its taste.
- We wait until the drink has cooled down and pass it through cheesecloth.
- We bottle the drink and send it to a cool dark place before the guests arrive.
Cranberry tincture on moonshine
This drink is liked by women, and is great for those who get drunk quickly or do not like strong alcohol.
Ingredients:
- Moonshine (50%) - 1.5 l
- Cranberries - 400 g
- Sugar - 300 g
Cooking method:
- Preparation of berries: we take 3-4 needles, connect them together and pierce each berry in 2-3 places. This is necessary for the berries to give juice.
- We fall asleep berries with sugar. For a stronger drink, you need to take less sugar than in the recipe - 150-200 g.
- Pour berries with moonshine sugar. The drink is ready when the cranberries settle to the bottom, and the liquid itself turns bright red.
- We rearrange the jar of tincture in the basement, or another dark and cool place. From time to time, the jar needs to be shaken or turned over. Before drinking, at least a month must pass so that the drink has time to acquire a rich taste.
Due to sugar, the fortress will drop to 30%.
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Cranberry wine combines benefits and pleasant taste. This drink helps to expand blood vessels, and is a good prevention of atherosclerosis. It is recommended to prepare this drink from berries that have been in the freezer for several days. So the cranberries become more juicy, and the taste of the drink becomes more intense.
A glass of cranberry wine
Cranberries are very picky berries. Therefore, in order to get a tasty and healthy drink, you will have to try hard, in addition, it is important to know a couple of tricks for this. If done right, cranberry wine it will turn out tasty, slightly tart and pronounced aroma.
Classic cranberry wine recipe
The process of making homemade cranberry wine
Cranberries themselves have a very low sugar content, so you will have to make up for this with more sugar. This recipe involves getting 2-3 liters. Its fortress will be 10-12%.
Ingredients:
- Cranberries - 2 kg
- Sugar - 2 kg
- Water - 2 l
Cooking method:
- Cranberries are sorted, the tails are removed. After that, they are sent to the freezer for 2-3 hours.
- Wine berries do not need to be washed. Cranberries are crushed to a puree state with a wooden mortar or blender, simply poured with water in a saucepan or bucket and 200 g of sugar are poured on top. We rearrange the mixture in a warm place for fermentation. We cover it with gauze.
- The future drink must be thoroughly shaken 2 times a day for the first two days. After that, mix the future wine only once a day. We are waiting for the formation of high foam, as a rule, this happens on the 4-5th day. We filter the liquid through gauze folded in several layers and pour another 1 kg of sugar into it.
- The cake remaining on the gauze also needs to be squeezed out, and the juice is added to the rest.
- The resulting mass must be poured into a bottle with a narrow neck. It is necessary to install a water seal, as a rule, a medical glove is used for this.
- The must must be moved to a dark place. The temperature there should be + 22-24 degrees.
- The glove is removed after 4 days, and 800 g of sugar are added. We put a glove or water seal in place.
- Repeat after 3 more days. This time, and the remaining amount of sugar, you need to make powder, and fill it up.
- When the glove has fallen off and sediment has appeared, the wine is ready. On average, this process takes 45 days.
- We drain the wine from the sediment and send it for aging. This period lasts from 3 to 6 months. If necessary, before aging, the wine is diluted with vodka to increase the degree (1 liter of vodka for every 10 liters of wine).
Sourdough Recipe
Cooking wine This recipe is 100% guaranteed. The result is 7-8 liters of excellent cranberry wine!
Ingredients:
- Cranberries - 1.25 kg
- Sugar - 3 kg
- Water - 8 l
Cooking method:
- First of all, you need to prepare the starter. To do this, you need to take a glass of cranberries, crush them directly with your hands, pour them into a liter jar and add 0.4 kg of sugar. Cover the jar with a gauze bandage and put it in a warm (at least +26 degrees), dark place for 10 days.
- The rest of the berries must be sorted out and crushed. Pour into a large container with a narrow neck (a bottle of at least 15 liters). Pour the berries with cold water, and add sugar there.
- The resulting mixture is well mixed, and left for 5-6 hours in a warm place to melt all the sugar. From time to time, the mixture must be thoroughly mixed.
- Then, a pre-prepared sourdough is poured into this mixture and mixed well. A glove is put on the neck, or any other waterproofing agent.
- We put the wort in a dark place where the temperature is stable from +22 to +26. Fermentation will take 1.5-2 months. From time to time it is necessary to remove the wine from the sediment, while the waterproofing (glove) must be changed to a new one.
- When you see a fallen glove, this is a sure sign that it's time to decant the wine. We remove the waterproofing, we pass the liquid through the rubber hose. If gauze was used for filtering, you will have to repeat the procedure several times. The second time the wine is filtered through gauze only the next day.
- We leave the drink for aging. You can drink wine after 3 months, but it is best to wait 6 months and start tasting the drink.
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homemade liqueur
Although the shops offer a huge selection of different liquors. A homemade cranberry drink is much tastier and even healthier. How to make liquor at home?
strong liquor
Ingredients:
- Cranberries - 500 g
- Sugar - 500 g
- Vodka - 1 l
- Cloves - 1 bud
- Cardamom - 1 pc.
Cooking method:
- The berries are washed, sorted, and crushed to a gruel state. To do this, you can use a blender, meat grinder, or a wooden mortar.
- Pour the resulting berry puree into a jar and fill it with an alcohol base. It can be used not only vodka, but also alcohol or moonshine, no more than 40-45% of the fortress. We set the resulting mixture in a dark place at room temperature for 4 days. We shake the jar once a day. We pass the liquid through cheesecloth, squeeze out the remaining pulp and throw it away.
- Pour the future liquor into a large saucepan and put on a slow fire. Add sugar there and gradually stirring, wait until the sugar melts. Do not bring the liquid to a boil, or too high a temperature.
- If desired, crush cardamom with cloves with your fingers, wrap in gauze and dip in liquor for 3-5 minutes, then remove the pan from the heat.
- The drink is ready. We wait until the liquor has cooled down, filter it again with gauze or a cotton filter and bottle it. Hermetically sealed drink can be stored up to 3 years.
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But not only alcohol can be prepared from cranberries. With its help, you can cook many other delicacies that will appeal to both adults and children. What else can be prepared from this miracle berry?
Cranberries in powdered sugar
Berries in powdered sugar
For many, this delicacy comes from childhood. Cranberries in sugar are an amazing dessert that has a sweet and sour taste. The berry itself with a slight sourness wrapped in sweet powdered sugar just melts in your mouth. And the best part is that this dessert is very easy to make at home.
Ingredients:
- Cranberry
- Egg white
- Powdered sugar
Cooking method:
- Fresh berries are best for this. We wash them well and sort them out. After that, spread the cranberries on a towel in one layer to dry.
- Separate the protein from the yolk, and beat the protein a little.
- Berries for 20-25 pcs. put in protein.
- Next we put a deep bowl with powdered sugar. We transfer the berries from the protein to the powder, leaving a distance of about a centimeter between them.
- Try to twist the bowl so that the berries are gradually covered with powder completely. We take out the cranberries from the powder one at a time and put them on a plate.
- We leave the berries to dry for 2-3 hours. After that, you can safely eat cranberries
Cranberry juice
Freshly prepared fruit drink
Cranberry juice successfully combines the benefits of a pleasant taste. The berry is a strong antioxidant, resists beriberi, reduces fever, has a beneficial effect on the digestive system, increases appetite and much more. How to cook cranberry juice?
Ingredients:
- Cranberries - 450 g
- Sugar - 250 g
- Water - 1.8 l
Cooking method:
- We wash and sort out the berries, dry them with a towel and transfer it to a deep bowl (glass or ceramic).
- We turn cranberries into puree using a blender or mortar. It is important that the nozzles do not oxidize when in contact with cranberries.
- We shift the resulting puree onto cheesecloth, folded several times. We filter the juice.
- Gauze must be left, while we run away the juice, and put the cake in a saucepan. We pour sugar there. Depending on preference, the amount of sugar can be adjusted to make the drink sweeter or sourer.
- Pour boiling water into the pan and put it all on fire. Stir the drink until the sugar dissolves.
- As soon as the liquid boils, remove the pan from the heat, close the lid and leave to brew for 20-30 minutes.
- When the drink has cooled, it must be passed through gauze again. After that, pour in the cranberry juice and mix well. You need to add juice to a warm liquid to keep useful vitamins in it. Now the juice is ready and you can safely drink it.
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To use cranberries all year round, you need to know how to properly store the berries for the winter. Of course, you can make various preservations from cranberries, but how to keep fresh berries? Let's start with the fact that cranberries need to be prepared for storage.
Wash well and sort through all the berries. We throw out the spoiled ones, send the overripe or crumpled fruits for conservation, and leave the rest for fresh storage.
Cooking berries
Selected berries need to be prepared: remove all leaves, rinse, and pour cold water for an hour. This will help to take all the remnants of debris: midges, moss dirt. After that, dry the cranberries with a towel.
Now the berries can be frozen, made into jam, jam or a treat with powdered sugar. LBest of all, the properties of cranberries are preserved after freezing, so modern housewives choose this particular method.
If there is no room for berries in the refrigerator, cranberries can be stored on the balcony in winter. The berries are soaked in cool boiled water with spices and placed on the balcony. As soon as the weather predicts the first frosts, we drain the water. So cranberries can be preserved until the very heat.
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frozen berries
In winter, sometimes you also want to eat cranberries. From it you can make a dessert in powdered sugar, prepare fruit drinks and other drinks. In addition, cranberries are often used for cooking meat, sauces, jelly, etc. But in order to preserve the beneficial properties of the berry, it is tedious to freeze it properly.
How to do it:
- We take a wide cutting board, and put it at an angle in a deep basin. We pre-wrap the board with a towel.
- We roll the berries on the board in a few pieces. All debris (sticks, leaves, etc.) will remain on the towel. Before rolling, we look through these groups of berries and select all rotten or spoiled ones.
- Wash the cranberries and drain the water. Dry the berries with a dry towel. Before freezing, they must be completely dry, otherwise the cranberries will stick together.
- We lay out the dry cranberries in separate bags in small portions, put them in the freezer. Freezing all the berries in one package is undesirable. They will not survive another freeze.
We grow large-fruited cranberries on the site
15 cranberry recipes (tinctures, vodka, alcohol, fruit drink, etc.) prepared at home, as well as how to freeze and store it properly
Great article. I really liked. Everything is in it - "The feather and the hat - everything is with him." Kidding. Indeed, very interesting and relevant.
And here's another idea: popsicle ice cream + cranberries with vodka, just the thing for a party!!!