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I'm making a beverage that calls for cran-apple juice (the marketed name by Ocean's Spray's cranberry+apple juice blend). My local grocers have a very limited product offering which rules out buying the blend off-the-shelf.

I do, however, have access to generic cranberry juice and apple juice. So, what I'm stuck at is basically the proportion of how to mix them. I suppose there is some "secret sauce" element to the recipe, so understandably there was nothing on the Ocean Spray website that was of any use for mixing my own. I tried some other search engine queries, but could only find making recipes where its made from actual cranberries (not juice). Such recipes made it difficult to distinguish the proportion from the volumes of water and juiced cranberries.

Question

Can anyone weigh in on what is a reasonable approximation of the cran-apple blend using only cranberry juice and apple juice? If other ingredients are needed, feel free to include them in your recipe and I'll try to incorporate them (as long as they are also readily available).

Note: Bit of a race against the clock, otherwise I'd happily order a bottle online or trial and error until I'm satisfied.

Arash Howaida
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2 Answers2

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Searching for "substitute fresh cranberry for cranberry juice" (because that's the actual substitution you need to make) gives you this nifty recipe for cranberry juice.

Proportion is 1:2 w/v ratio on fresh or frozen berries as juice equivalent (100g berries = 200mL juice).

CHECK THE LABEL of your juice to verify the ingredients just to be safe - if you have pure cranberry juice, I'd stick with 1:1 w/v ratio and then add more if necessary.

Juliana Karasawa Souza
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  • Why would this be "the actual substitution"? The OP's recipe prescribes a mixed apple+cranberry juice and they have apple juice and cranberry juice, where do fresh cranberries come in? Even if you are suggesting that they press their own cranberry juice, this still doesn't answer how much from the fresh cranberry juice should be used. – rumtscho Oct 30 '19 at 09:58
  • @rumtscho OP mentions they found a recipe for apple+cranberry juice that uses apple juice + fresh or frozen cranberries. Since they don't have fresh or frozen cranberries but have the juice, they need to use juice instead of berries. The recipe I posted is a cranberry juice made from berries, so it is just reverse maths from there. Of course it is not 100% accurate because it depends on OP's juice, so I suggested 1:1 w/v to start and then adding more – Juliana Karasawa Souza Oct 30 '19 at 10:04
  • Reread the first sentence of the question - it says the recipe uses a brand-name premixed juice, and does not specify anything about separate apple or cranberry juice, or any whole cranberries. – rumtscho Oct 30 '19 at 10:08
  • @rumtscho Tried to ping but I'm not able to. I read it - not only the question but the whole post. OP doesn't have access to that and needs to make a mix of cranberry juice + apple juice. OP found a recipe for apple juice + fresh or frozen cranberries. I gave OP how much juice they can use instead of fresh or frozen cranberries ("Such recipes made it difficult to distinguish the proportion from the volumes of water and juiced cranberries"). – Juliana Karasawa Souza Oct 30 '19 at 10:11
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    OK, it seems that you and I have a different understanding of the situation after reading the question. I guess it's up to the OP now to say whether your answer contains what they need. – rumtscho Oct 30 '19 at 10:17
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The proportion is not 50/50. It's more like 30/70, cran/apple. Still, experiment with a cup (8oz) of apple juice and start adding in the cranberry juice an ounce at a time.

**I honestly don't know the proper ratio, but I've tried this once and did it 50/50. It tasted horrible.

TXElliot
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