Fresh Cranberry Bars are buttery shortbread crumble bars bursting with fresh tart cranberries and the combination is pure heaven. If you haven’t baked with zingy cranberries yet, now is the time to start!
fresh cranberry bars are a delicious celebration of cranberry season!
When I spotted the first stack of fresh cranberries in my supermarket the other day I lunged at them. Even though cranberry production still exceeds demand in this country, you never know when people are going to wake up and figure out that fresh cranberries have so much more to offer than just being boiled up into a sauce. I like to hedge my bets and stock up the minute I see them. Remember the great pumpkin shortages of ’06, ’08, ’09, and ’11? I don’t take any chances with my fall staples.
don’t be afraid of fresh cranberries!
I use them like any other berry, there’s no need to cook them first or add a lot of sugar. They burst open in the oven and form a ruby red layer in these bars that has a wonderful lemony tartness.
cranberry shortbread bars are a versatile holiday treat
These are perfect for pot-lucks, bake sales, book groups, office parties, all that stuff. They pack and travel well, and can be eaten with fingers or forks. I think these are the easiest of all the crumble bars that I’ve made (and I’ve made a lot) because the cranberries just get scattered in between the layers of shortbread dough. There’s only one bowl to worry about, no nuts to chop, no spices to measure. This is definitely one of those recipes that could become habit forming, in a good way.
the flavor of cranberries blooms in the oven
They get soft and jammy, and become even more brilliant red when they bake, so these bars are especially pretty. I use vanilla in these cranberry bars, but you can also use almond extract, and then the cranberries take on a cherry flavor.
you can never have too many cranberry recipes
Baked Brie with Maple Roasted Cranberries
Maple Cranberry Butter in 15 minutes!
Fresh Cranberry White Chocolate Scones
Fresh Cranberry Bars
Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 Tbsp vanilla bean paste, or vanilla extract
- 2 cups cake flour, or you can use regular flour
- 1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries, rinsed and patted dry
Instructions
- Set the oven to 350F
- Cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in the salt and vanilla.
- Mix in the flour, just until combined.
- Line an 8×8 or 9×9 baking pan with parchment paper or foil with overhanging edges, this will make it easy to lift the bars out of the pan for cutting. Alternatively you can just lightly spray the pan with non-stick spray.
- Using your fingers, pat 2/3 of the dough into the bottom of the pan. The dough will be soft and sticky, do your best to cover the entire surface of the bottom, but you don’t need to compact the dough, just lightly pat it down.
- Spread the cranberries out across the dough, and then, using your fingers again, crumble the remaining dough on top. Try to get the dough in smallish crumbles, but don’t worry about covering all the cranberries, they will show through.
- Bake for about 45-50 minutes until just beginning to get golden around the edges.
- Cool on a rack.
131 Comments
Samantha Lanphar
December 22, 2021 at 12:52 pmHello and merry Christmas!
I made these and your cranberry scones for my neighbors and they were a huge hit!!!! I added some chopped almonds for some crunch and not only did my house smell great, I had to hide them from my family so they wouldn’t all be eaten. Thank you!!!
Christine Reynolds
November 24, 2021 at 9:37 amThese cranberry bars are the best! I’ve made them often and they are such a treat and so well received. Very pretty too especially around the holidays! One of my favorite recipes!
Coleen Brown
September 29, 2021 at 2:47 pmI wish I could leave a pic of how they turned out, but wow! Super impressed. My husband works at an furtalizer warehouse and the farmers enjoy sharing what they produce. Well, they had a huge load of cranberries brought in. Me, never having done anything with cranberries before, hopped onto the web to see what I could find. I am so glad I came across this blog!!
Sue Moran
September 29, 2021 at 4:21 pmThanks so much Coleen, I love cranberries and you’ll find lots more ideas on the blog for using up those berries 🙂
M
January 10, 2021 at 6:23 pmIs it 1 cup of butter PLUS 2 sticks?
Or 1 cup of butter, which IS 2 sticks?
Sue Moran
January 10, 2021 at 7:07 pmIt’s one cup butter, which is also 2 sticks.
Dina
January 10, 2021 at 7:47 amMy mom brought home a bag of fresh cranberries and I had never seen fresh cranberries before. I popped one in my mouth but that was not a pleasnt experience! No, this is not that kind of fruit apparrently. Immediately looked up recipes using cranberries because I really wasn’t interested in making cranberry sauce, nor did I want to make them into raisins. This recipe seemed simple enough and had so many positive reviews so I gave it a shot.
It was delicious as promised 🙂
I used 1 cup of brown sugar instead of 2/3 and regular flour. Also my baking pan was slightly larger so it baked faster took about ~40 minutes with a 9×13 in baking pan. I didn’t have much dough left at the end to make the crumble cover the whole layer but it was actually nice having some of them stick out of the top.
Next time I’ll try to see how much I can cut down on the butter or maybe do some substituting since that was the only thing that concerned me. I have eaten like 5 already!
Sue Moran
January 10, 2021 at 8:28 amI can imagine your face after eating that raw cranberry! Glad these were a hit for you 🙂
Melissa
January 4, 2021 at 3:55 pmI love them! We substituted fresh raspberries for cranberries. Does anyone know id we can freeze them?
Sue
January 4, 2021 at 6:05 pmThey should freeze well Melissa.
I.V.
December 26, 2020 at 5:06 pmI have been using your recipe for years, sometimes I add other frozen berries, but cranberry is our favorite. Love it!!!
Sue
December 26, 2020 at 5:25 pmThanks for coming back to comment IV 🙂
Sofia quadri
December 24, 2020 at 11:59 amThese were so lovely! Just made them, sprinkled about 2 tbsp of sugar on the top and bakes for about an hour so the edges were nice family loved it thankyou!
Ann Steinhart
December 20, 2020 at 10:07 amI made this 2x and love this recipe. Will make it again.Thanks.
Sue
December 20, 2020 at 11:16 amThanks Ann 🙂
Laura
November 29, 2020 at 8:11 pmReally easy prep and really beautiful result.