Spanguolių Kisiėlius

2026-01-10
Source: My elders!! Effort: High

Pretext:

CW: This pretext is a bit rambly, feel free to skim if you're just here for a recipe.

The title of this translates to Cranberry Kissel. Were you to look that up on the net, you would find an apt description of the recipe below on sites as generic as wikipedia.

Abstracted, this drink is just a sweet and sour cranberry-flavoured slurry. It is slightly thick, by design. Traditionally to be served warm, but is just as enjoyable when cold.

For me and for my family however, this is a drink exclusively associated with a traditional christmas eve. I make this once a year. And I do not let myself enjoy this on a different occasion because I feel like it would taint the associative specialty of this drink.

In my local, lithuanian stores, I can actually find a pre-packaged version of this drink, made by fruit juice companies.. I shudder to imagine what their kissel tastes like.

At some point during my youth.. due to time constraints, we would resort to using a store-bought, just-add-water-and-heat mix of it to serve at the christmas eve table. Either that or we used lower quality ingredients..

point being.. this is the recipe that my late grandmother used. Years of experience have taught me how superior it is to anything one could acquire at any store. And these days, what follows is the only Kisielius we make for christmas.

Unfortunately, this is the sort of recipe where there is no recipe.
I make it exclusively by feel.
I can only give rough guidelines.

Ingredients:

• Cranberries
• Water
• Sugar
• Potato Starch (Americans can substitute with corn starch)
• (OPTIONAL) Citric acid / Lemon Juice

Here's a rather terrible kicker.
None of these have exact ratios.
Again, I make this by feel. (and i unfortunately don't recall the ratios I used last christmas)

Though I can give guidelines..

• The cranberries here will be the main source of flavor.
• The sugar is there to balance out the sourness of the cranberries.
• The water is to stretch the total volume of the resulting kissel..
• and the potato starch is used exclusively to thicken the result.
• The citric acid is used in years when the cranberries grown are not sour enough. Judge this to your personal preference for sourness.

Required Tooling:

• Cold press juicer. In all honesty, any method of extracting juice from a cranberry works here... But do note the word juice. A mash won't work here. We need something in actual liquid form, with minimal chunks within.
• A large pot. If you are making this.. you are best off making a lot of this. At least 3-4 litres worth. That way the effort you put into getting the mixture tasting right will result in a reasonable amount of product.
• Glass jars. I'd avoid storing this in plastic or stainless steel containers. Make sure you have one more container than you think you need.

Prep:

• Juice the cranberries.
• Add into pot.
• Add enough water to double the volume. I.e. a ratio of 1:1 between the juice and water.
• Start heating the pot
• While the combination of juice/water is mixing, add sugar to taste. I can't exactly describe the balance.. essentially.. try to aim for what you think is the best ratio between sweet and sour. Make sure to stir immediately after adding the sugar. Without stirring, the sugar can settle to the bottom of the pot and scorch.
• Prepare a starch/water slurry. You need about one tablespoon of starch per liter of water. Though this is a very rough measurment. Make sure no clumps of starch remain.
• Bring the pot to a boil
• Add in the slurry. Add a bit more than you think you need. The drink is less viscous at boiling temperatures.
• Mix until combined
• Distribute into glass jars.
• Let cool to a comfortable temperature and consume.

ON THICKNESS: Since I did not provide exact ratios, I think it's best if I try to put the thickness of kissel into words... Imagine a viscosity spectrum. On one end, you have water and on the other hand you have freshly harvested liquid honey. The Kissel I make falls pretty much into the middle of that spectrum. It's nowhere near viscous enough to coil up when poured, but it's nowhere near as thin as water is.