Homemade Dried Cranberries

The Process

Finally, I can present to you my homemade dried cranberries. I’ve already teased it on our social media that it was coming. But it took a few tries to perfect, like with most of our recipes. We want to find the best way to make something and share it with you. My first try I did with maple syrup and took almost 6 hours to dry. And that was just too much. I wouldn’t do that to you. It should be simple and easy and not take the entire day to make. The problem I quickly discovered was the maple syrup. By adding a liquid in something that is supposed to dry out was just extending the drying process.

Next, I moved on to xylitol as the sweetener but also changed my oven setting which gave me crunchy dried cranberries. Which was not what I was going for. But by the third time I figured it out, found the sweet spot on the oven temp and pushed the cooking time down from 6 hours to 3½. I consider that a success!

Why Homemade Dried Cranberries?

Okay, why go through the hassle of making your own dried cranberries. Well it’s the same argument we have for any other home-made item we have on the blog. You control the elements and ingredients. Have you ever glanced at the ingredients list on the package of dried cranberries? The amount of sugar that is used is insane in my book. I still use a sweetener in this recipe. But I can control the quantity and the type of sugar. The most important factor is that you know what you are putting into your body. If you read the ingredients and are okay with that, that’s on you but at least you have all the information available to decide for yourself.

Use It In:

So, you finally managed to dry your own cranberries?! Now you can use it on top of your morning smoothie bowl or one of the following recipes: