Warning: This is the sweetest little jar of curd you ever did taste. It is highly addictive. Especially when a dollop is plopped atop a gingersnap.
SNAP! That’s some good curd!
My good friend Valerie and I had planned a canning get together with our other good friends, Grace and Akemi. This was during the holiday season and we were planning on making gifts for teachers and friends. Valerie came up with the brilliant idea of canning cranberry curd. Now – I know what you’re thinking. IS THAT SAFE? Yes, it is. Please see explanation at bottom of post.
To begin, Valerie chose a recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson‘s How to Be a Domestic Goddess, as published in the Houston Chronicle way back in 2006.
We quickly modified the recipe based on our joint knowledge of food preservation guidelines. But the end result was so wickedly delicious I ended up making an even larger batch at home several weeks later, carefully documenting my changes to make this both delicious and safe.
A final quick note: cranberries are not local to the bay area. Gosh, I think it is one of the few things we DON’T grow! But I was able to score bags of fresh organic cranberries from Trader Joe’s for a pretty good price (I think $2.99, if my memory serves correct). Curd is rich and delicious and, therefore, I like to can it in small 4 ounce jars to ensure I don’t eat a whole cup at once. ‘Cuz I will. Besides, if you can them in 4 ounce jars, there are more to give!
If you have frozen cranberries that made it past Thanksgiving, here’s a wonderful way to get them out of the freezer and into the jar!
makes fourteen-sixteen 4 ounce jars
1 1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice, plus zest of 1 orange
10 TBSP unsalted butter
6 large egg yolks, plus 2 eggs, lightly beaten
Directions:
- Sterilize your jars and lids.*
- Combine cranberries, juice, zest and 1 cup water in a stainless steel saucepan. Cook over low heat until the cranberries pop, about 15 minutes. Press through a fine-meshed sieve and discard solids.
- Return the purée to the saucepan. Add the butter and sugar, stirring until dissolved. Scoop a few tablespoons of the warm cranberry mixture into the eggs, tempering them in order to prevent scrambling. Pour the egg/cranberry mixture into the purée. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve.
- Ladle curd into hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.
- Remove any air bubbles. Wipe the rims and seal the jar.
- Process in a boiling water bath for fifteen minutes (start counting once the water has reached a boil), more depending on altitude.
* If you’re making the full recipe, which is too much to can in one batch in a canner bath, you might consider using the oven for this project. In which case you need to preheat your oven to 250 degrees F. While it is pre-heating, simply put your jars into the oven, on a cookie sheet, to sterilize. They should be in there at least 20 minutes, but leaving them in the oven the entire time you are working on your recipe will be more than enough! When you’re ready to can the curd, take the cookie sheet out of the oven, fill the jars (follow regular canning instructions on filling) and put the lidded jars back into the oven for 15 minutes, more depending on altitude.
Why it’s safe: I know there are a bunch of people who are skeevy about canning a curd. And you should be! Good for you for not wanting to get botulism! If I hadn’t made it my New Year’s resolution to not swear, I’d put a little badge on this recipe that said “Don’t FU*& with this recipe!” But…I am trying not to swear. So I can’t do that. But please, don’t modify this recipe unless you know what you’re doing. You can safely halve the recipe. So…how am I confident this is safe? Here is the USDA’s recipe for safely canning lemon curd. A reminder that the biggest safety issue with a canning recipe has to do with the pH of a recipe. A recipe with a pH of 4.6 or lower can be canned safely in a canner bath. Lemons and cranberries are very acidic, and they are about the same pH (around 2.4). Very safe. In the case of a curd recipe, proteins are added (butter and egg) which will affect the pH of the end product. But you will note that in comparison to the USDA’s lemon curd recipe, I used more juice and more berries (meaning my recipe is even MORE acidic) and LESS butter and eggs, comparatively. Therefore…you have no reason to worry about the pH level being safe for canning purposes.
More pretty pictures!
squeezed orange juice
Press through a fine-meshed sieve
temper the eggs
make pretty swirls!
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
This was such awesome stuff. Sigh. I wish I had thought to freeze more cranberries. Great work up of the recipe, Paige.
I can’t wait to try this!!!!! I have made fresh lemon curd from huge lemons from my Mother’ garden, but have not made cranberry curd. I will give it a shot this weekend……thanks for the recipe!!!!!
Let me know how you like it! You’re gonna love it. It’s so good! http://canningwithkids.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php?p=594&approved=1#comments-form
Great recipe, I am excited to use the cranberries left in the freezer!
Do you know if a pressure canner would be suitable for this product?
Hi Gudrun! You can definitely use a pressure canner because it will simply get the product hotter, it’s not necessary though. It’s safe to seal this in a canner bath (or a preheated oven at 250 degrees). It’s well under the 4.6 pH cut-off for canner baths.
the reason I ask is that in my pressure canner I can stack the jars, so I can do an entire batch at once! This would make nice V-Day gifts, classy red jars.
This looks so good!
I made Meyer Lemon Curd a few weeks ago. I will have to try this one!
I’ll bet it doesn’t last long enough to go bad…
I know the Lemon Curd didn’t!
So glad I found your blog!!
Margaret
Two in the Nest
Did you make the cranberry curd? Let me know! I’d love to hear how it turned out!
Can you tell me how long this will last on the shelf or does it have to be refrigerated?
Hi Desiree. It does NOT need to be refrigerated but you need to be careful to follow the instructions exactly when you are working with curds (the eggs and butter can bring the pH to an unsafe level if you don’t follow the recipe). It will be good for 6 months!
I was under the impression that curds could only be pressure canned. So it is great to find out that there is a safe canning method for it.
As the “official” recipe calls for bottled lemon juice only, though, I wonder if the use of fresh fruit could affect the ph? And if it is safe to use fresh cranberries and their juice, then is it okay to use fresh lemon juice? Do you test the ph? I have a tester for cheesemaking so I could theoretically use it for this, although I’ve never actually used it.
It is safe to use fresh lemon juice. Read this post, where Linda does the research and lays out why this is safe: http://agardenerstable.com/2011/04/19/real-lemon-versus-realemon/
The USDA is very persnickity about this because store-bought lemon juice is a consistent pH and it’s just easier to tell a novice to stick with store bought. But I don’t know a single person who has a lemon tree (which is very prolific) and goes out and buys store-bought for canning purposes. INSANE! Also, my dad is a retired food scientist and says it’s totally fine.
The one thing I would say is don’t use meyer lemons, which are a higher pH than the more acidic lisbon and eurekas.
Regarding testing, I’ve done computations when I am worried (the cranberry curd is an example) but I base those calculations off a safe recipe and compare the acid versus less acidic ingredients. You can use a sensitive pH tool to determine the pH but if the recipe is on the edge, you’d be smart to add an ingredient to get it off the edge. And some things are just a problem – pumpkin butter is an example. The reason why there are no safe canning recipes is that no matter how often you test, batches of pumpkin butter come out at inconsistent pH levels, so it’s not reliable to test it once and assume the recipe is good to can.
Could I use a sugar substitute, like stevia, in this recipe, or do you think that wouldn’t make it shelf stable… or that it wouldn’t get to the right texture.
thanks!
No you can’t. This is one of those “don’t mess with it” recipes. Eggs and all. I was very careful about this one and wouldn’t want to change anything like a sugar substitute. But you can make it, just taste it to your preference and put it in the fridge. Just make a small batch.
My BWB canning pot is ginormous. Can’t I just stack the quarter-pint jars in it to process the whole recipe at once? Because I thought processing in the oven was a big food safety no-no? #novicequestions
Is there a way to tell if the canned curd has gone “bad” or shouldn’t be eaten? Keeping some in-canned in the fridge and canning the rest…I’m just a bit paranoid about eating bad curd. Haha:)
Well, if it’s gone bad, it would have a yucky smell to it. If it’s canned properly and you followed the recipe, botulism wouldn’t be a problem. So anything beyond that you should be able to see or smell. In general, curds should be eaten within 6-9 mos. They have a smaller shelf life than jams, for instance.