Easy Sugar-Free Candied Cranberries For The Holidays

With the holidays just around the corner, it’s time to break out the cranberries. I made these sugar-free candied cranberries to decorate my holiday desserts and perk up my holiday cocktails.

These keto candied cranberries are very easy to make. The only challenge is they do need to soak over night.

Don’t let that discourage you, though; the rest is a piece of cake. (also, these look absolutely beautiful on a cake!)

Cranberries; are they even keto?

Cranberries, the raw or frozen ones you find at the grocery store every fall are indeed keto friendly. At only 8 per cup, they pack very few carbohydrates.

The dried cranberries you find in the grocery store, are not keto, low carb or even sugar-free. They are actually loaded with sugar. A quarter cup of dried cranberries has more sugar than a soda.

But this sugar-free candied cranberry recipe is indeed keto friendly.

What sweeteners work best in this recipe?

For the syrup, you are going to want to use granular allulose. The wonderful thing about allulose is that it creates a sticky texture, that stays sticky once cooled. We want the cranberries to absorb as much as the allulose syrup as they can overnight.

If we used sugar alcohol like erythritol for the syrup, it would crystallize before it ever had a chance to coat and soak into the berries.

For the coating, I like to use granular erythritol. Once the erythritol sticks to the allulose soaked berries, it creates a really nice sugary coating that has that crunchy crystallized feel. That’s what we want here. You can coat your berries in any granular sweeter you want, but it may not have that pretty crystallized look to it. Use the sweetener you like the taste of the most.

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Tips to get the syrup just right

There are a few tips for working with allulose.

• Gently stir the allulose and water. Try not to splash any syrup water up on the sides of the pan. Allulose can burn very easily; if you burn the bits on the side of the pan, they will chip and fall off into your syrup. This will cause the syrup to be bitter.
• Do not cook allulose on high; cook on medium to medium-low.
• We only want the syrup to start bubbling in the middle. As soon as the allulose syrup starts to bubble in the center of your pan, put in the cleaned cranberries. Or, if you have a thermometer, cook the allulose to 220F.
• You will think there is not enough syrup to cover the berries, but there will be.

Cooking the cranberries to just the right point.

• We don’t want to overcook the cranberries.
• We want to cook them in the syrup until the first few bursts.
• Remove the pan from the heat and pour into a flat bottom pan. A square 9×9 cake pan works great for this.
• Give the berries a stir and cover them and let them sit overnight. In the morning the berries will have slurped up all that wonderful syrup.

How to coat the Candied cranberries

In the morning drain the cranberries with a sieve. SAVE the syrup! It tastes great in cocktails, or over pancakes!

To coat the sugar-free candied cranberries, fill a plate with 3/4 cup of granular erythritol and gently place cranberries in the sweetener. Roll the soaked cranberries in the erythritol and then set them aside on another plate to dry.

Storage & Serving Suggestions

These store in the fridge for up to a week.

They look great on low-carb cookies, cakes, cheesecakes; any holiday dessert really. They even look quite splendid on a cocktail swizzle stick.

Don’t forget that leftover syrup is delicious in drinks, with or without alcohol, and really makes a great little treat for low carb pancakes!

Looking For More Holiday Dessert Ideas?

We have many low carb desserts perfect for the holiday season.

• Low Carb Raspberry Cheesecake
• Keto-Friendly Millionaire Bars
• Homemade Sugar-Free Marshmallows
• Low Carb Vintage Cherry Chip Cake
• Soft Keto Gingerbread Cookies
• Delicious Keto Pumpkin Pie
• Gooey Sweet Low Carb Pecan Pie