Can I Make The Cranberry Syrup With Dried Cranberries?

Our answer

Nigella's Ice Cream With Cranberry Syrup has a sweet, syrupy sauce made from fresh cranberries that can be poured over ice cream. Frozen cranberries can be used in place of fresh cranberries. However, we suspect that if the fresh or frozen cranberries were replaced with dried cranberries then the sauce would not be the same. Dried cranberries may plump up a little in the syrup, but they do not break down and become "jammy" during cooking in the way that whole cranberries do. In addition, many dried cranberries have an added sweet coating, which could make the resulting syrup overly sweet.

If you are looking for a summer alternative then ypu could try using redcurrants, as these are also slightly sharp fruits that would work well in the sauce. You would need to pick the redcurrants from their stalks and use the picked weight of berries. Blackcurrants could also be used (or a mixture of redcurrants and blackcurrants) but these are, in our experience, more difficult to find in supermarkets and grocers. Alternatively, you may like to try the raspberry sauce from Nigella's Peach Melba recipe as the sauce has a similar sweet-sharp taste and goes well with ice cream.