Cranberry Orange Bars
Ingredients
- Baking spray
- 2 cups All purpose flour
- 2 sticks Salted butter
- ¾ cups Powdered sugar, plus more for garnish
- ¼ tsp Salt
- 1 large Orange, for peel & juice
- 1 cup Fresh cranberries
- 2 cups + 3 Tbsps Granulated sugar
- 4 Eggs
Instructions
Shortbread Crust
- Start by spraying a 9x13 glass baking dish with baking spray to ensure you have an easy release for your bars.
- Next, in a medium bowl, melt the butter and then add the flour, powdered sugar and salt.
- Using a fork, slowly combine the ingredients until a gentle dough forms. The less mixing involved, the flakier your crust will be.
- Pat down the dough with a spatula into a single layer on the bottom of the 9x13 baking dish.
- Bake the crust in the oven for 23-25 minutes at 350° or until the edges of the crust start to brown.
- While the crust is baking, start making the cranberry orange filling!
Cranberry Orange Bar Filling
- To start the filling, zest a large orange and mix the zest with the sugar to create an orange sugar. You can set this aside for now.
- Next, juice the same orange you just zested and add the juice into a small saucepan.
- Add in the cranberries and three tablespoons of sugar.
- Mix together and cook over medium to medium high heat for about 8 to 10 minutes.
- In this time, the cranberries should burst to the point that you can smash them and the juice sauce mixture should thicken.
- Once thickened, remove the orange cranberry sauce from the stove and pour into a tall glass measuring cup.
- Use an immersion blender to fully blend the sauce until you have roughly ¾ of a cup of cranberry orange sauce.
- If you do not have an immersion blender, feel free to pour the sauce into a traditional blender to blend the sauce until it has no lumps.
- After the sauce is blended, add 7 to 8 tablespoons of the sauce (a little less than ¾ a cup) to the orange sugar.
- Mix together and then add in the eggs. Stir until well blended.
- After well blended, pour the filling over the hot shortbread crust.
- Place in the oven and cook for 15 minutes.
- To prevent the top from overbrowning, gently tent aluminum foil over the pan and cook for another 15 minutes or until the center is set when the pan is nudged.
- Remove from the oven and let cool. Dust with powdered sugar and cool completely before cutting as they will cut much nicer squares when cool.
- Cut into 15 large squares, 20 medium or 30 small squares depending on your preference.
Notes
Store in an airtight container at room temperature or in the fridge for up to 1 week. These bars do not have to be refrigerated, however they are delicious cold as well. Enjoy!