These cranberry crumb bars are a delicious and easy cranberry dessert that is made with fresh cranberries and a delicious shortbread crumb topping and base. This recipe uses one shortbread dough for the crust and the crumb topping making it so easy to make. Great at the holidays or when cranberries are in season.
Why You'll Love These
If you have never tried or made shortbread bars with jam or fruit, they are so delicious! We make these every year at our house and for all of our holiday parties. They are always the first dessert to go! They are:
- Easy to make: To make this cranberry bar recipe, there is only one dough that you need to make for the top and bottom shortbread layers. This saves so much time!
- Flavorful: The lemon and orange along with the cranberries have so much flavor. The shortbread crust and crumble are amazing too!
- Can be made all year: You can use fresh or frozen cranberries to make the cranberry filling if that is what you have on hand.
Ingredients And Substitutions
- Unsalted Butter: I always use unsalted butter in my baking recipes.
- All Purpose Flour: Use your favorite brand.
- Cranberries: I love making these with fresh cranberries when I can. You can use frozen cranberries or skip making the cranberry sauce and use canned cranberry sauce (quantities for this are in the recipe below).
- Granulated Sugar. This helps sweeten the cranberries which are very tart.
- Light Brown Sugar: This adds a little caramel flavor to the bars.
- Lemon and orange: The lemon and orange help brighten the flavor of the cranberries.
- Kosher salt. If you are using regular table salt, that is fine but make sure to half the amount in the recipe.
- Vanilla Extract: A good quality extract here.
How To Make Cranberry Shortbread Bars
Making these is so easy. Here are all the steps in photos to show you. (full recipe below)
- Make your cranberry mixture. The first thing you want to do is make that delicious cranberry and citrus sauce. This is just a homemade cranberry sauce with orange juice that takes only a little time on the stove. You can make this ahead of time as well and refrigerate the sauce until you are ready to make the dessert.
- Cream sugar and butter. The next step is starting on the dough that makes the crumble part of these crumble bars. You start by mixing the butter and sugar together. You want to make sure you mix it well so it becomes a nice creamy texture like in the picture below.
- Now mix your dry ingredients in. Once you have the mixture creamed up, you can start adding the flour. This is very simple, just mix the flour and creamed butter until it just starts to form a dough. You do not need perfection when mixing the dough. Just mix until it all comes together.
- Keep mixing until dough forms. It may seem like the dough is not coming together but be patient and keep that mixer going. It will begin to come together all at once.
- Divide dough and refrigerate half. Once you have a dough, you divide it in half. This recipe is really easy. There is one dough for the top and the bottom. The dough on the bottom is pressed into the pan which makes a crust. The dough on top will be crumbled later on to make the crumb.
- Press half of the shortbread dough into the pan and bake. You will want to pre-bake the dough on the bottom of the pan before moving on to adding the toppings. This will give the crust a head start on cooking all the way through.
- Add fresh cranberry mixture to the cooled crust. After the dough is pre-baked, you can now start adding the toppings. Just smooth out an even layer over the entire top of the shortbread crust. It does not need to be perfect!
- Now add crumble topping (the other half of dough from earlier). Now you can grab the other half of the dough that you reserved and begin to grab large pieces of the dough and crumble it over the top. This part is really fun and really easy. I like to leave some space between some of the crumble pieces to let the cranberry sauce show through a little. The crumble will not spread.
- Bake until golden brown. Now you bake it until golden brown on the top. That is it!
These cranberry crumb bars make a great dessert to serve to a large group since you can make a lot of it at one time. You will want to make sure you leave time to let them cool before slicing.
Tips
- Making ahead of time: This cranberry crumb bars recipe can be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge. I would recommend making them no more than 24 hours in advance
- Serving: When serving, remove the bars from the fridge about 1 hour before you are ready to eat them so they have time to come to room temperature.
- Use canned cranberry sauce: To make things easier, you can use canned sweetened cranberry sauce instead of making it. Just make sure to stir the canned cranberry sauce until smooth so you can spread it evenly.
Variations
If you love these shortbread bars and want to switch up the flavors throughout the year, here are some of my favorite ways to do that:
- Use jam: I love making these bars with homemade jam but you can also use store-bought. You will need about 2 ½ cups or so of jam for the filling. I love making my homemade nectarine jam for these in the summer!
- Use another frozen fruit to make the filling: Instead of using cranberries in the recipe to make the filling, try using frozen cherries or strawberries for the filling. Just follow the recipe the same for quantities. I even love using apples for apple shortbread bars.
Storing
If you do have any extra left, they store really well on the counter or in the fridge. If you do store them on the counter, make sure to cover them and store them no more than 2 days this way.
You can store them in the fridge, for up to one week.
More Cranberry Recipes
Cranberry Shortbread Crumble Bars
A delicious cranberry bar recipe made with a shortbread crumble and crust and a fresh cranberry filling.
Servings: 12 bars
Equipment
- 9x11 pan
- hand mixer or stand mixer
Ingredients
Homemade Cranberry Sauce
- 12 oz fresh cranberries
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large orange juiced (about ¼ cup)
- 1 lemon zested and juiced (about 2 tablespoon of juice)
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon kosher salt
Shortbread Bars
- 1 ½ cups unsalted butter 3 sticks of butter at room temperature
- 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 12 oz cranberry citrus sauce see above for recipe
- ½ cup light brown sugar firmly packed
- ½ cup granulated white sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon salt
- powdered sugar for serving (optional)
Instructions
Cranberry Filling
- Add your fresh cranberries, orange juice, lemon juice and zest, sugar, vanilla and salt to a medium sauce pan.12 oz fresh cranberries, 1 cup granulated sugar, 1 large orange, 1 lemon, ½ teaspoon vanilla extract, ⅛ teaspoon kosher salt
- Simmer on medium heat for 5 minutes.
- Reduce heat to low and simmer for another 10-15 minutes or until the cranberries begin to burst and the sauce thickens. To test for the right thickness of the sauce, dip a spoon into the cranberry sauce and coat it well. Remove the spoon from the sauce and run your finger down the back of the middle of the spoon. If the line you made through the sauce on the spoon stays and does not fill up again with the sauce from the sides then it is ready.
- Once done, remove from the stove and allow to come to room temperature. The sauce will thicken a bit at this point.
Shortbread Bars
- Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
- Spray or butter a 9x11-inch pan well so your shortbread comes out easy after baking.
- In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, combine the butter sugar (brown and white) and beat until smooth.1 ½ cups unsalted butter, ½ cup light brown sugar, ½ cup granulated white sugar
- Next, add your vanilla and salt and mix that in.1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon salt
- Now, add your your all purpose flour into the butter mixture and mix on low-speed until the mixture starts to form a ball (about 2-3 minutes) .3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- Divide your dough in half and wrap up one half and place in the refrigerator until later. Press the other half of the dough into the bottom of the prepared pan to form the bottom crust.
- Bake the crust until it is just beginning to turn light brown, around 20 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the oven and let cool for a few minutes.
- Place your cranberry sauce over top of the shortbread crust and spread evenly.12 oz cranberry citrus sauce
- Now, take your reserved half of the shortbread out of the refrigerator and crumble the dough over the cranberry sauce to make your crumbled topping, being careful to not have really large pieces.
- Return the pan to the oven and continue baking for another 30-35 minutes until the crumble topping turns golden in color. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.
- Once cooled, your can slice up your Cranberry crumble bars and serve!
- Dust with powdered sugar (optional)powdered sugar
- Enjoy!!
Notes
If using already prepared cranberry sauce:
You will need about 2 -2 ½ cups or enough to spread into a layer across the shortbread without it being to thin (about ½ inch thick).
Making ahead:
These cranberry bars are a great dessert to make ahead of time. Just let cool completely then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
Place in the fridge for up to 2 days.
Nutrition
Calories: 485kcal | Carbohydrates: 66g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 23g | Saturated Fat: 15g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 6g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 61mg | Sodium: 225mg | Potassium: 96mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 35g | Vitamin A: 728IU | Vitamin C: 9mg | Calcium: 25mg | Iron: 2mg
Nutrition Values are estimates only.
See full nutrition disclaimer hereTried the Recipe? We Would Love To Hear From You In The Comments Below!
Cindy says
How much juice do you get out of 1 large orange? I need to leave the lemon out(allergic). Should I replace it with something else?
Melissa Oleary says
It will be about 1/4 cup! The lemon brightens it a bit but you do not need it 🙂
Cheri says
This worked exactly as written, thanks! Everybody loved them!!
Melissa Oleary says
So glad everyone enjoyed them Cheri! They are a favorite in our house this time of year 🙂
Doreen and Veronica Minigan says
Can I use a can of whole cranberry sauce instead of fresh cranberries?
Melissa Oleary says
absolutely!
Alicia says
Made these over the weekend and everyone loved them!
Melissa says
Love hearing that 🙂