Cranberry Butter Recipe and Tutorial

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Apple butter is a fall favorite for me already, so when I had some extra cranberries in the fridge, I thought cranberry butter would be an amazing spread to make.  And I was right.  Cranberry butter is so easy to make (especially in a crock pot!), and has just the right amount of bright, vivid fruit flavor I crave.

Recipe for homemade cranberry butter made in a crock pot.

There is nothing better than a hot cup of tea and a well-dressed scone.  Especially if that scone is a pumpkin cranberry scone slathered with clotted cream and cranberry butter on a chilly fall morning.

The rich amazingness of clotted cream is traditionally paired with strawberry jam, but in these chilly winter months, doesn't cranberry butter just sound right?  Bright enough, tart enough, to shock you out of those short winter days?

Cranberry butter ingredients on a wooden cutting board.

I love classic apple butter in the fall, and this 3 ingredient peach butter recipe is amazing to make in the summer.  Cranberry butter gives me the perfect winter fruit butter spread to round out my collection of recipes.

Cranberry butter ingredients in a crock pot

Crock Pot Cranberry Butter Recipe:

  • two bags of fresh cranberries (24 ounces total)
  • 1 cup apple cider or apple juice
  • 1 cup brown sugar, packed
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

The technique couldn't have been easier.  I threw it in a crock pot.  And then I let it stew at high heat for several hours.  How many?  I'm really not sure.  It wasn't critical.  It's not like this stuff is going to get dry and inedible if you overcook it.  Probably five hours.  Ish.  Just cook it until it's all nice and mushy.

Collage of cranberry butter being processed in a food processor and strained.

And then blend it all up in your food processor.  Then press the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer to remove the solids.

Or you could just use a Blendtec Blender, which can pulverize anything.  My mom has one, and I swear she made me a smoothie of peaches, skin and all, that was so smoth it was like kissing a baby's bottom.  A delicious, peachy, baby's bottom.  

Cranberry butter in two glass canning jars on a weathered white wood background.

Whichever method you choose, you'll end up with an intensely flavorful spread, just tart enough, but not bitter.  This is cranberry at its very best.

Knife smeared with cranberry butter resting on top of a jar of cranberry butter.

Especially when paired with such spctacular flavors like pumpkin.

   Cranberry butter slathered on two halves of a split cranberry pumpkin scone.

This is so good, you'll want to can a few jars and remember winter in the middle of summer!

Other Cranberry Recipes You Might Like:

Navigational image leading reader to pumpkin cranberry scones recipe

Navigational image leading reader to cranberry nut quick bread recipe

Nicole Wills, creator of Tikkido

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