Highbush Cranberry Jelly

by DanRMorris
(Nashville, TN)

A highbush cranberry

Part of my childhood I spent in Anchorage, Alaska. That's a wonderful place to be a kid, but to this day I wish I had been older so I could have appreciated more of the beauty.

One year we decided to go pick wild cranberries. I'm not sure if we intended to pick highbush or lowbush cranberries, but we ended up picking highbush. I remember it being lots of fun, but have a feeling my folks played a "Tom Sawyer" on me and made me think it was fun. :)

Anyway, we picked lots of highbush cranberries and highbush cranberry jelly. It was a bit tart and sweet at the same time and I remember loving it from the first jar to the last. I know it's not a cranberry relish, but here's my recipe for:

highbush cranberry jelly

Ingredients

* 2/3 c sugar (for every c of extracted juice.)
* liquid pectin (optional) .
* 2 c highbush cranberries (OK to triple) .
* 3 c water (OK to triple same as berries)


Directions

Simmer the berries in the water (watch that the ratio is 2 c berries to 3 c water) for 10 mins. Simmering them allows the inside to heat up at the same time the outside heats up. Then boil rapidly for 3-5 mins.

Strain the liquid through a jelly bag or cheese cloth lined sieve overnight. Do not squeeze the mixture or your jelly will be cloudy. If you're impatient, sorry about that but it is necessary.

For each c of juice, add 2/3 c white sugar and stir. Bring the sugary mixture to 220-222 degrees on candy thermometer then remove from the heat and skim off the foamy part.

Then bring juice & sugar to a boil, boil hard for 1 min then remove from the heat, add pectin, stir well. Fill jars and place in water bath for 5 minutes. Enjoy!