Cranberry Ice

A Densmore tradition. A must with Thanksgiving turkey. Before the fruit cup fell by the wayside, Densmore Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners traditionally began with a small scoop of cranberry ice served over a fruit cup of citrus fruit and grapes.

Makes ~4 1/2 cups






NOTE: Cranberries should be strained through a regular kitchen strainer.** Ed and I first made this in New Hampshire when Moogie was in New Mexico for Thanksgiving. Since the recipe gave no directions for processing, we used a potato ricer to process the cranberries. The cranberry particles exploded out of the ricer reaching all parts of the kitchen. Although we did our best to clean up, for weeks after she returned home, Moogie continued to find reminders of this culinary adventure .

Cook about 10 minutes, or until skins start to pop (you will see and hear this happen - I let skins continue to pop for ~ 2 minutes before straining cranberries) :

1-pound cranberries
2 c sugar [I use 1 1/2 c or less to taste*; in 2017 and  2018, I used just 1 cup and everyone that tried it thought it was the right ssweetness)]
3 c hot water

Pour through strainer, then press remaining berries against the side of strainer to extract some of pulp.

Cool a bit then add:

8 T orange juice
2 T lemon juice

Put in container(s) and freeze, stirring once just as mixture begins to set in order to mix pulp and juice as evenly as possible.

Shortly before serving this, I place a metal serving dish in the freezer to chill.  About the same time, I remove the cranberry ice from the freezer since it is very hard to scoop immediately after it has been removed from the freezer. When the dish is cold I scoop the slightly softened cranberry ice into the dish then cover the dish  with plastic wrap and return it to freezer until it is time to time to put the dish on the table.

* November 2014: Most of the "old family recipes" on this blog have had their sugar, butter and salt contents adjusted downward. Somehow, until this year, this recipe had escaped such adjustment. Earlier this month in anticipation of Thanksgiving desert, Chris made a trial Cranberry Linzertorte and decided the sugar content needed downward adjustment.  This reminded me I was still using the original Cranberry Ice recipe. This year I cut the sugar to 1 1/2 cups.  Think it could be cut even further but wanted to gradually introduce this change to the rest of the family.  If using the small, lingonberry-like cranberries (found some recently at the Portland Farmers Market), I would use 1 c or even less of sugar.

** I was also reminded this year that a Foley Food Mill (not to be confused with a potato ricer!) is a great way to process the berries. Not a kitchen accessory I would buy for the purpose, but if you have/inherited one, great for this recipe and Enchilada Sauce. 







Reviewed 6/20/2017' Revised (to recommend sugar reuduced to 1 cup), December 2018