This sauce is like the chunky jewelry version of a dessert topping, and it’s knockout with a simple black dress version of a slice of chocolate cake.
By adding rum and vanilla to a traditional cranberry sauce, this uber-local ingredient’s possibilities extend far beyond November.
Cranberries are a kind of Cinderella story. Stuck in a bog, allowed out only at Thanksgiving, cranberries have just a fleeting moment to impress upon anyone their dessert-worthiness. Meanwhile, that trollop raspberry trounces around all year acting as if she were chocolate’s one and only. Yet, excellent quality cranberries are available fresh for a good part of the year, and frozen all year. Cranberries are almost one hundred times less perishable than raspberries, and at least ten times less expensive.
I say move over raspberries; cranberries have de-throwned you as the singular berry with which to top a flourless chocolate cake or smother a bowl of vanilla Haggen Daz.
Here are the paparazzi making this cranberry rum sauce famous. Watch for the video in January.
Cranberry Rum Sauce
makes 2 cups
Ingredients
2 cups of cranberries
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup rum
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt
Instructions
Put all ingredients into a medium saucepan, and bring to a simmer of medium heat. Simmer five minutes, or until the cranberries are popped and integrated into the liquid. Serve warm or at room temperature