Cranberry Crumb Bars (Perfect Thanksgiving Dessert)
Here’s a delicious treat that tastes as yummy as it looks and would be a perfect end to your Thanksgiving feast. Your guests will love these festive cranberry crumb bars. The star of this show is cranberries – they taste tart and sweet with the orange zest and sugar. You’ll want to grind up the almonds first in a food processor or very high powered blender until they are more like almond flour, not paste, so be careful. Gluten-free flour can also be substituted and your cranberries can be fresh or frozen (no need to thaw if they are indeed frozen).
Cranberry Crumb Bars
yield: 24 SERVINGS
cook time: 55 MINUTES
total time: 55 MINUTES
Delicious cranberry filled crumb bars are perfect desserts for any gathering or sweet treat.
Ingredients
Crust and Topping:
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup ground slivered almonds
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup cold butter
- 1 egg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Filling:
- Juice of 1/2 of an orange
- Zest of one orange
- 4 cups fresh cranberries
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
Directions
1
Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease 13×9-inch pan with butter or cooking spray.
2
In large bowl, mix flour, 1 cup sugar, the almonds, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter, using pastry blender (or pulling 2 table knives through ingredients in opposite directions), until mixture looks like coarse crumbs.
3
Stir in egg. Press 2 1/2 cups of crumb mixture in bottom of pan. Stir cinnamon into remaining crumb mixture; set aside.
4
In medium bowl, stir all filling ingredients. Spoon evenly over crust. Spoon reserved crumb mixture evenly over filling.
5
Bake 45 to 55 minutes or until top is light golden brown. Cool completely. Refrigerate until chilled. Cut into 6 rows by 4 rows. Store tightly covered in refrigerator. Makes 24 bars.
Recipe Adapted from Betty Crocker
If you want to serve them hot out of the oven with a little vanilla ice cream, then go for it. (They just won’t be set up enough for square shapes.) Below is how they look after being in the fridge for a couple hours.
They look beautiful, taste wonderful, and are really simple to make! Enjoy 🙂
These look SOOOO yummy! Thank-YOU!
I made these Sunday and they are good I substituted regular flour for the slivered almonds it is a winner. Thanks
Awesome!! Thanks for sharing.
Ditto…
OH yum!! Thanks for sharing!
I just made muffins with cranberries & orange/orange zest. it’s a killer combo!!! I just may have to make these. My stomach is growling…….
I am loving these posts by Lina!
Thanks!!!!! 🙂
Yes ! Looks like professional pictures and excellent ideas!!!!
Lina , do you have your own page?
I love your style : ) or your team work with your kids!!!
Lina, I have a question for you on the equipment I see, lol. Do you like your Ninja? I need a blender and my food processor is broke too and I make smoothies in my bullet every morning. So would this do them all? I see different packages, but do you like the Ninja overall and would recommend it for these things and for baking reasons too??? Thanks! ALso, I love your new food feature on Hip2Save!!
Yes!! I double love it! I now use it for smoothies and as a food processor to make pesto, salsa, soup, ect 🙂 It came with a miniature bullet looking attachment for individual smoothies. Love that too.
Thanks for saying that!! 🙂 Happy to be here.
These look so good! Lina, just wondering what you think the taste/texture might be like if I omitted the almonds? I have a little with a tree nut allergy at home, so I just avoid them at home entirely (rather than having the poor thing salivate over treats she can’t have!). Thanks!
I think since it’s such a small amount adding a little more regular flour would be fine and instead of crumbly maybe it’d b a little smoother dough. 🙂 Enjoy!
Thank you 🙂
You could always use quick oats too, that’s what I typically sub in a crumble type recipe that calls for nuts.
Oh! That’s a good idea Sara, thanks!
Will this recipe work well with red hard wheat flour?
Does one measure the almonds before or after grinding? Thanks.
After 🙂 I ended up with a little extra
Lina or anyone else: Have you ever tried adding almond extract to this recipe?
No but I bet that’d be good! 🙂
that looks so ….Yummy, I hope we are neighbors 🙂
I made these today! Yum! I used regular oats like a previous poster suggested. They were regular (not quick cook) oats and it turned out great.
I was thinking it might be a good idea to share where the best deals are on the main ingredients in your recipes (to tie into the savings aspect of the site). For example, I was proud of myself for getting cranberries for $0.99 at Aldi. They are $2.99 at my regular grocery store! Or maybe you could include the average price per serving in your posts? Just some ideas!
Thanks for the great recipe!
I just made these and they are awesome! I used almond extract because I ran out of vanilla. They taste great. Thank you for the recipe!
Yeah! Thanks for sharing that 🙂
I just made some berry crumb bars with orange zest & juice tonight for my family. But I wasn’t using cranberries nor cinnamon. This however sounds really yummy! Would love to try this soon 🙂
As I was putting the groceries away, I was just thinking of what to make with the bag of cranberries in my frig. – Thank you for the recipe Lina!
This is in my oven right now! I am excited. It is already making my mouth water!
This recipe has become a holiday tradition. Thanks for the great recipe, Lina! This time I doubled the recipe & used less sugar in the filling. I used a heaping 1 cup sugar in the filling instead of 2 because I like the tartness of the cranberries. I also have used a mixture of nuts in the past when I didn’t have enough almonds. I think last year I did walnuts & almonds
That’s great!! Thanks for sharing Matina 🙂
Made it again for Thanksgiving this year (it gets requested every year now:) and tried whole wheat pastry flour- it turned out great. Thanks! My husband also used your ham & cheese Hawaiian bread sandwiches recently for his work and they were a huge hit! He also tried turkey, bacon & cheddar on a jalapeño Hawaiian sweet roll and it was super popular as well.
Awesome Matina! Thanks for sharing and Happy Thanksgiving!