Cranberry Bars

 

This is another good time-saving recipe. These bar cookies call for two parts: the cranberry sauce and the cookie bars. The cranberry sauce can be made a day or even a couple of days in advance. You can also use store bought whole berry cranberry sauce if you’d prefer. I made the cranberry sauce and then transferred it to a bowl. I stuck it into the refrigerator until I was ready to make the bars. It gets a little solid, but a quick stir before adding it to the bars was all that was needed.

The quantities listed here are for a half recipe, and you’ll notice that it makes a reasonable amount of cranberry sauce (about 1-1/2 cups) and not very much cookie dough. I could have made double the amount of cookie dough and it probably would have been fine. Perhaps it would have needed a longer bake, but that always varies a little anyway.

Since I had so little cookie dough, I didn’t divide the dough into equal halves. I tried to spread half the dough into the pan, but it was simply too thin, and I ended up using probably 60% of the dough for the base. It needed to be solid! I figured that the top layer could be more like a crumble topping, so that is what I did. Since I didn’t have a lot of dough on the top, it was more difficult to tell when the cookies were done, but I took them out of the oven when they were golden. These cookies are a wonderful combination of the tart of the cranberries and the sweet of the cookie. It’s a winning combination!

Cranberry Bars
6 ounces fresh or frozen cranberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup water

1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter; cut into pieces
1 egg

Make the cranberry filling: in a medium saucepan, combine the cranberries, sugar, and water. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the cranberries pop and the mixture thickens. Set aside to cool completely.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8” square pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large food processor, mix the flour, sugar, and baking powder and pulse to combine. At the pieces of butter and pulse until the mixture is crumbly. Add the egg and pulse until the dough comes together.

Place a little more than half the dough in the prepared pan and press into an even layer. Top with the cooled cranberry filling. Sprinkle the top with the remaining dough, pressing down carefully.

Bake for about 35-40 minutes, until golden. Allow to cool before cutting into bars.

Recipe from Dish in the Kitchen