Cranberry Bars

Helga Glaesel de BlandingDecember 5, 2015

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This is my favorite time of year, and it’s also my busiest. Not only because of the holidays…no matter how much I try to get everything organized, somehow I end up having a greater amount of work all around, but I still want to have homemade goodies for my family, part of what I like about this time of year is time in the kitchen with my daughter, especially if I can find a delicious, festive and easy treat. This recipe is just that.

The original recipe calls for fresh cranberries to make the spread, but since we don’t find fresh cranberries in Guatemala, my version uses canned whole cranberry sauce. Make sure you don’t get the jellied cranberry sauce that you slice, I don’t know if that would work. I added a bit more sugar, and let it simmer for a while so it thickens, I also added some orange zest to give it extra flavor.

This is great for coffee, it’s not too sweet and the dough is flaky and it almost melts in your mouth. I guarantee you won’t be able to have just one piece! To make them a bit more festive, you could use silver-colored sprinkles on top of the melted white chocolate. Use them before the chocolate hardens.

Helga

Cranberry Bars

Recipe adapted from Tatyana’s Everyday Food
Yields: 24 bars

Ingredients:
½ cup butter, softened at room temperature
¼ cup confectioner’s sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
a pinch of salt
2 cans of whole berry cranberry sauce
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon of orange zest
white chocolate, for garnish

Procedure:

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, confectioner’s sugar and vanilla extract. Fold in the flour and salt using a spatula until a soft cookie dough forms. Transfer the dough onto plastic , shape the dough into a disk, wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare the cranberry spread. Place the cranberry sauce, orange zest and sugar into a sauce pot. Heat over medium-low heat for 20 minutes, until the sauce thickens a bit. Transfer spread into a bowl and cool completely.
Once dough has chilled, prepare cookie pan. I used a 6×12-inch brownie pan lined with parchment paper. Divide the dough into smaller pieces, then using your hands, firmly press the dough into the pan, forming an even layer. Spread the cranberry spread over the top.
Bake cookie bars in preheated oven at 350 F for about 25 minutes, until the top is set and sides of cookies bars are a golden brown color. Let the cookie sheet cool in the pan before removing. Remove the sheet with the help of the parchment paper lining.
Melt white chocolate and transfer into a ziplock bag. Cut off a small corner of the bag and drizzle the white chocolate over the cooled bars. Let the chocolate set before using a sharp knife to cut the sheet into squares.