Cranberry Crumble Bars

I had half a bag of fresh cranberries sitting in the bottom of my fridge just waiting to be used, so I decided to try this recipe. Cranberries are a very convenient fruit, as they will keep in a plastic bag in the fridge for up to one month, and they freeze well too. We had already had some cranberry muffins, and whole-berry cranberry sauce is not very popular in this household, so I decided to try some cranberry bars for something different - cranberry crumble bars. 

They turned out to be quite yummy and made a nice fall dessert. The crust was crisp like an apple crisp topping, and the cranberry filling had just the right balance of sweet and tart, with a hint of orange flavor. These bars are good warm or cold; fresh from the oven with a little vanilla ice cream or cooled to room temperature with a dollop of vanilla icing (or whipped cream).

I found the recipe while surfing online, here it is:

Cranberry Crumble Bars
FILLING
2 cups fresh cranberries
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice* 
1 Tbsp. finely grated orange zest
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
*One large orange should do for both juice and zest. Use two if you want extra orange flavor. If you are a liitle short on juice, add enough water to compensate.

CRUST
1/2 cup butter or hard margarine, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cups oats (quick-cooking or old-fashioned)
1 cup flour (all-purpose or whole wheat)
1/4 tsp. salt

FILLING Bring all filling ingredients to a boil in a 1 1/2 quart saucepan, cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until thickened. Cool.

CRUST Beat butter and sugar. Stir in remaining crust ingredients until crumbly. Press half of mixture into foil-lined 9x13 inch pan, spread with filling, and top with remaining mixture. Bake at 400◦F for 20 minutes until light brown.


These bars are quite flat, you could easily use a 9x9 inch pan for higher bars. This recipe could also be halved for a 9x9 inch pan.

 "Cranberry Crumble Bars.” https://www.lifemadedelicious.ca/Recipes/C/Cranberry-Crumble-Bars.aspx. Life Made Delicious, n.d. Tuesday, October 25, 2011.