Cranberry Jelly (1931)
Reader ratingsAunt Sammy’s cranberry jelly, 1931: cranberries cooked soft, pressed through a sieve, boiled briefly with sugar to the jelly point and set in a mold.
- Recipe makes
- One small mold, about 10 servings as a relish
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
About 30 minutes of work, then at least 6 hours in the refrigerator to set. Make it the day before you need it.
Molded cranberry jelly with a wedge cut out.
The story behind the recipe
Cranberry jelly comes fifth on the typed Hyde Park menu, right after the cold turkey and the hot sausages. Aunt Sammy’s Radio Recipes Revised, which the United States Department of Agriculture printed in 1931, gives one recipe for cranberry sauce and three ways to finish it. The berries can be cooked in syrup until the skins burst and set in a mold, cooked and sieved for a smooth jelly, or kept whole in a heavier syrup. For a picnic dish called jelly we take the sieved version, smooth and firm enough to turn out of a mold. The menu gives the dish without a method, and Aunt Sammy’s dates from eight years before the picnic.
Where did cranberry sauce usually belong in 1931?
On the November table. The same book’s menu for Thanksgiving dinner runs from fruit cup through “Roast turkey or roast chicken” to “Cranberry sauce” and pumpkin pie, the pairing the Hyde Park menu set out for a lunch in June.
Read more about this recipe
How did a 1931 cook know the jelly would set?
With a spoon. Once the sugar is in, Aunt Sammy boils the juice only about three minutes, “or until the juice gives the 2-drop test from a spoon.” The drops that run off a spoon slowly join and fall as one sheet when the juice will set.
Making it today
The steps are Aunt Sammy’s; the thermometer reading is our addition, a check beside her spoon test. Out of season, use frozen cranberries, thawed. Dampening the mold, as she says, helps the jelly slide out.
Aunt Sammy’s own Boiled Ham with a Brown Sugar Crust (1931) is its natural partner, and What Did the King and Queen Eat at the Roosevelts’ 1939 Picnic? reads the typed menu that put the two together.
1 quart (1 pound) cranberries. 1½ cups water. 2 cups sugar. ...
For a strained sauce, cook the berries and water rapidly in a covered saucepan for about 15 minutes, or until the berries are soft. ...
Recipe makes: One small mold, about 10 servings as a relish
Ingredients
For One small mold, about 10 servings as a relish. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for One small mold, about 10 servings as a relish.
- Fresh cranberries1 lb
- Water1 1/2 cups
- Sugar2 cups
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 1 lb fresh cranberries
- 1½ cups water
- 2 cups sugar
Equipment
- Medium saucepan with a lid
- Fine sieve and a bowl
Wooden spoon- Candy or instant-read thermometer
- Mold or bowl of about 3 cups
Instructions
Pick over the cranberries, throwing out any that are soft, withered or spotted, and rinse them.
Put the berries and the water in the saucepan, cover and boil fairly hard for about 15 minutes, until all the berries are soft and split.
Set the sieve over the bowl and press the berries through it with the wooden spoon, scraping the underside, until only skins and seeds are left. Discard them.
Rinse the mold with cold water and leave it wet.
Return the strained pulp to the clean saucepan and stir in the sugar. Bring it to a boil, stirring, and boil for about 3 minutes, until the mixture reaches 220°F (104°C) at sea level and two drops run together and sheet off a cool metal spoon.
Pour it at once into the wet mold. Let it cool, then refrigerate it for at least 6 hours, until set.
To serve, run a thin knife around the edge, dip the mold in warm water for a few seconds and turn the jelly out onto a cold plate.
Nutrition
170calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- One small mold, about 10 servings as a relish
- Servings
- 10
Estimated per serving (10) from USDA FoodData Central values for raw cranberries and granulated sugar, less the skins and seeds left in the sieve.
Recipe notes
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Aunt Sammy’s “1 quart (1 pound)” of berries is a pound by weight here. She says only “strain through a fine sieve”; pressing the pulp through, which gives an opaque, smooth jelly, is our reading of it. For a clear jelly, let the juice drip through without pressing; it yields less. The 220°F (104°C) reading is the jelly point at sea level given by the National Center for Home Food Preservation; it is lower at altitude, where the spoon test is the better guide. It is a fresh jelly for the refrigerator, to eat within a few days; it isn’t sealed or canned for keeping.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
After Ruth Van Deman and Fanny Walker Yeatman, Aunt Sammy’s Radio Recipes Revised (Washington, 1931), Cranberry Sauce
See the original pages (scan at Internet Archive) (opens in a new tab)