Being a family of cranberry lovers, we took a jaunt a few weekends ago to Warrens, Wis., for the town’s annual Cranfest . Amid a town full of craft booths and funnel cake vendors, we found what we were looking for, a tour of a real cranberry bog. We learned a lot there about how they cultivate and harvest cranberries. (The cranberries don’t actually grow in the water, but are flooded in the fall to make harvesting easier, since they float.)
My 10-year old son Dwight learned the hard way what a cranberry picked straight off the vine tastes like. They really do need to be sweetened!
Afterward, we browsed through the Wisconsin Cranberry Discovery Center, http://www.discovercranberries.com/, where we learned about how cranberry farming developed over the years. The farmers invented quite a few interesting tools.
Afterward, we hit some of those vendor booths, focusing on those that sold cranberry items. You name it, they make it with cranberries—chutneys, salsas, ice cream, candles, soaps, teas, candies, mustards, honey, barbecue sauces, cheese, sausage, dips and syrups. After looking around for the best prices and reading labels carefully, we bought cranberry wine, cranberry-flavored popcorn, cranberry honey (no actually berry in it, but the bees used cranberry flower pollen) and cranberry taffy. The boys really wanted the cranberry fudge, but I couldn’t find any that was dairy-free. So, of course I promised find a recipe and make some for them.
I finally got around to it this week, and after the results, I can tell you that GFCF fudge is possible! Most of the recipes I found call for cooking up fresh or dried cranberries into a sauce or reducing cranberry juice. Being a lazy cook, I found a recipe that uses cranberry juice concentrate. It’s cheaper than bottled juice, and less work, too.
Coconut cream turns out to be a great dairy-free substitute for evaporated milk. Instead of butter, I used a refined coconut oil that can tolerate higher temperatures. The cream and the oil may give the fudge a slight coconut flavor, but it works together well with the vanilla in the marshmallow cream and the cranberry juice.
For white chocolate chips, I used Eilien’s Candies, Inc. brand, which, while it doesn’t contain gluten or dairy, could still have some cross contamination from the equipment. The boys and I can tolerate some cross contamination. However, if that’s an issue for you, I found the Chocolate Emporium, which offers GFCF white chocolate chips for sale at http://www.choclat.com/GFCF/gfcf.php. It’s more expensive, but it makes this fudge possible for those who have to be extra careful about a GFCF diet.
(12 ounce) package GFCF white chocolate chips
1/2 teaspoon almond or orange extract
Seven ounces marshmallow cream
1/3 cup coconut cream
1/3 cup frozen cranberry juice concentrate, thawed
2 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup coconut oil
Spray or grease a 9x9 pan. Set aside the chips, extract and marshmallow cream in a large bowl. In a medium size sauce pan, bring coconut cream, sugar and cranberry concentrate to a boil, stirring constantly. Cook to 235°F on candy thermometer (about 9 minutes). When mixture reaches 235°F, take off the heat and add coconut oil. Stir and mix it well, and then pour over the white chips, extract and marshmallow cream. Stir this well until all the chips melt. Pour into the prepared pan. Let it cool and then refrigerate till firm. Cut in squares.
Afterward, we browsed through the Wisconsin Cranberry Discovery Center, http://www.discovercranberries.com/, where we learned about how cranberry farming developed over the years. The farmers invented quite a few interesting tools.
Afterward, we hit some of those vendor booths, focusing on those that sold cranberry items. You name it, they make it with cranberries—chutneys, salsas, ice cream, candles, soaps, teas, candies, mustards, honey, barbecue sauces, cheese, sausage, dips and syrups. After looking around for the best prices and reading labels carefully, we bought cranberry wine, cranberry-flavored popcorn, cranberry honey (no actually berry in it, but the bees used cranberry flower pollen) and cranberry taffy. The boys really wanted the cranberry fudge, but I couldn’t find any that was dairy-free. So, of course I promised find a recipe and make some for them.
I finally got around to it this week, and after the results, I can tell you that GFCF fudge is possible! Most of the recipes I found call for cooking up fresh or dried cranberries into a sauce or reducing cranberry juice. Being a lazy cook, I found a recipe that uses cranberry juice concentrate. It’s cheaper than bottled juice, and less work, too.
Coconut cream turns out to be a great dairy-free substitute for evaporated milk. Instead of butter, I used a refined coconut oil that can tolerate higher temperatures. The cream and the oil may give the fudge a slight coconut flavor, but it works together well with the vanilla in the marshmallow cream and the cranberry juice.
For white chocolate chips, I used Eilien’s Candies, Inc. brand, which, while it doesn’t contain gluten or dairy, could still have some cross contamination from the equipment. The boys and I can tolerate some cross contamination. However, if that’s an issue for you, I found the Chocolate Emporium, which offers GFCF white chocolate chips for sale at http://www.choclat.com/GFCF/gfcf.php. It’s more expensive, but it makes this fudge possible for those who have to be extra careful about a GFCF diet.
(12 ounce) package GFCF white chocolate chips
1/2 teaspoon almond or orange extract
Seven ounces marshmallow cream
1/3 cup coconut cream
1/3 cup frozen cranberry juice concentrate, thawed
2 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup coconut oil
Spray or grease a 9x9 pan. Set aside the chips, extract and marshmallow cream in a large bowl. In a medium size sauce pan, bring coconut cream, sugar and cranberry concentrate to a boil, stirring constantly. Cook to 235°F on candy thermometer (about 9 minutes). When mixture reaches 235°F, take off the heat and add coconut oil. Stir and mix it well, and then pour over the white chips, extract and marshmallow cream. Stir this well until all the chips melt. Pour into the prepared pan. Let it cool and then refrigerate till firm. Cut in squares.
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