Cranberry Apple Sauce, Trail Version
Dried apples and cranberries cooked back into sauce with a little sugar and lemon.
- calories
- 320
- weight
- 3 oz
- cal / oz
- 107
- protein
- 1 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 10 min
- total time
- 12 min
- water
- 300 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dessert
- Breakfast
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Campfire coals
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Winter / snow
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dried apple slices | 1 cup | unsweetened, torn into smaller pieces |
|---|---|---|
| Dried cranberries | 1/4 cup | |
| Sugar | 1 tbsp | start low, the cranberries decide the rest |
| Citric acid or powdered lemon | 1/4 tsp | stands in for bottled lemon juice |
| Salt | a pinch |
Method
- Put the apples, cranberries, and salt in the pot with 300 ml of water. Stir once so nothing sits dry against the bottom.
- Bring it to a boil, then drop to the lowest flame you can hold. Cover if you have a lid.
- Simmer about 10 minutes, stirring every minute or two. Scorched sugar on a thin pot happens fast.
- When the fruit is soft and falling apart, kill the heat and mash it against the side of the pot with your spoon.
- Stir in the sugar and the citric acid. Taste. Add sugar a pinch at a time if the cranberries are winning.
- Let it sit five minutes off the stove. It thickens as it cools.
The source of this is a canning recipe: fresh apples, fresh cranberries, a food mill, and a water bath. None of that travels. Dried fruit does the same job in reverse — the water comes back at camp instead of being cooked off in a jar, and the skins that a food mill removes are already soft enough in dried fruit to not matter.
The cranberries are the point. Apples alone go flat and cloying; the tartness gives it structure and means you need very little sugar. Citric acid replaces the bottled lemon juice, which in the original was there for canning safety and is here only for flavor. Watch the heat — a pot of fruit sugar over a canister stove scorches before it boils dry.
Packing
Apples, cranberries, sugar, citric acid, and salt all go in one bag at home. Tear the apple slices before you pack them; smaller pieces rehydrate in half the time.
Variations
- A shake of cinnamon or a few cloves goes in with the water.
- Stir the finished sauce into oatmeal instead of eating it alone.
- Skip the sugar entirely if your dried cranberries are already sweetened, which most are.
https://www.theseasonalhomestead.com/cranberry-applesauce-canning-recipe