Drying cranberries at home turns one 12-ounce bag of fresh berries into about 3/4 cup of tart, chewy dried fruit. The berries sit briefly in just-boiled water until their skins split, spend 2 hours in the freezer, and then dry slowly at 135°F in a food dehydrator until they are shriveled and leathery. It is a handy way to keep cranberries once the freezer is full.
Both early steps speed up the drying. A cranberry’s waxy skin holds its moisture in, so it has to crack before the berry can dry, and freezing ruptures the cells inside so the juice escapes more readily. Home-dried berries are not infused with sugar like store-bought ones; toss them with a little sugar or corn syrup before drying, or leave them plain and sweeten them later in whatever they go into.
Without a dehydrator, an oven that holds 140 to 150°F, with the door propped open, does the same job. Either way, let the berries cool, check that no moisture remains, and store them airtight in a cool, dark place.
Home-Dried Cranberries
Materials
- One 12-ounce bag fresh cranberries about 3 cups
- 2 quarts water for blanching
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar or light corn syrup for coating (optional)
Instructions
Crack the skins
- Sort the cranberries, discarding any that are soft or bruised, and rinse them in a colander.
- Heat the water in a large pot until it is boiling hard, and switch off the burner.
- Add the cranberries to the hot water and leave them, off the heat, until most of the skins have split, 2 to 4 minutes. The berries must not boil, because boiling makes the flesh mushy.
- Drain off all of the water, spread the berries on a clean kitchen towel and pat them dry. Cut any berry whose skin has not split in half, so it dries all the way through.
- For sweetened berries, toss them with the sugar or corn syrup. For plain, tart berries, skip this step.
Freeze
- Spread the cranberries in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet and put it in the freezer for 2 hours.
Dehydrator method
- Move the frozen cranberries to dehydrator trays lined with mesh or solid drying sheets, in a single layer, so they cannot fall through the racks as they shrink.
- Dry at 135°F for 10 to 16 hours (the time varies from one make of machine to another), rotating the trays once or twice.
- Let a few berries cool for a few minutes, then test them. They are done when they are shriveled, leathery and pliable, and no moisture appears when one is squeezed or torn open. Dry any soft or sticky berries longer.
Oven method
- Set the oven to its lowest setting, ideally 140 to 150°F, and prop the door open 2 to 3 inches with the handle of a wooden spoon so moisture can escape. The gap also keeps the heat down in ovens that do not go below 170°F.
- Spread the frozen cranberries in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet and dry them for 6 to 12 hours, stirring and rotating the pan every 2 hours, until they pass the same test as above.
Cool and store
- Let the dried cranberries cool completely, about 30 minutes, then pack them into clean, dry, airtight jars.
