White Chocolate Cranberry Crumb Bars

Bars
December 4, 2021
Bars
December 4, 2021

White Chocolate Cranberry Crumb Bars

  • Prep time: 15 min
  • Cook time: 30 min
  • Total time: 45 min

Holiday baking is upon us! Celebrate all the festive flavors with these  buttery crumb bars filled with a tart and

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White Chocolate Cranberry Crumb Bars

Holiday baking is upon us! Celebrate all the festive flavors with these  buttery crumb bars filled with a tart and tangy homemade cranberry filling. These white chocolate cranberry crumb bars come together quickly and are the perfect balance of sweet and tart!

white chocolate cranberry crumb bars

White Chocolate Cranberry Crumb Bars

Happy holidays! And more importantly happing holiday baking. Obviously my favorite part of the holiday season is all of the sweets, and these white chocolate cranberry crumb bars are sure to be a staple in our house this year. They’re super easy to make and filled with a perfectly balanced cranberry orange filling. Drizzle these chewy crumb bars with white chocolate and you’re in for the ultimate festive treat.

stack of cranberry crumb bars

Ingredients for cranberry crumb bars

You’ll need 12 ingredients to throw these cranberry crumb bars together, but most of them are pantry staples like flour, butter and sugar. Plus, the awesome thing about making a cookie bar versus a cookie is that you just slap everything into a pan and fire it all up instead of scooping out individual cookies. So any extra time you might have to spend grocery shopping will be made up for in the baking time.

  • Old Fashioned Oats
  • All Purpose Flour
  • Granulated Sugar
  • Brown Sugar
  • Baking Soda
  • Unsalted Butter
  • Egg
  • Milk
  • Vanilla Extract
  • Cranberries
  • Orange Zest
  • White Chocolate

white chocolate cranberry crumb bars

Tips for making cranberry crumb bars

These cranberry crumb bars are pretty straightforward to make, but these tips will guarantee you perfect bars every time!

  • Make sure your butter is cold: The key to a tender crumb bar is keeping your butter nice and cold so you get flaky, buttery pockets in your dough.
  • Don’t over mix: The more you mix your dough, the more the gluten will develop which can lead to a tough, overworked dough. Only mix your cookie dough until its just mixed to ensure it stays soft and tender.
  • Under bake: There is nothing sadder than a dried out baked good in my opinion. It can be so easy to over bake bars, but it’s so important to remember that baked goods continue to bake as they cool. What does that mean? If you take a baked good out of the oven when it’s fully baked in the middle by the time it cools it will be overworked. My recommendation? Take it out of the oven when it’s still slightly underbaked in the middle. By the time is cools completely the center will have cooled off to a perfectly baked, slightly gooey texture. Enjoy!

white chocolate cranberry crumb bars

How to store these cranberry crumb bars

I love a dessert that stores well. Especially around the holidays, it is *so* nice to have a sweet in your back pocket that transports well–whether that be shipped across the country to a family member or bringing over to a friends, it’s always a good idea to have a festive dessert in your fridge. These cranberry crumb bars keep well in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 7 days or in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. You can also pop these guys in the freezer for up to 2 months!

white chocolate cranberry crumb bars

Happy holiday baking!

XXX

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Cranberry Crumb Bars

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 4.5 from 2 reviews

Holiday baking is upon us! Celebrate all the festive flavors with these  buttery crumb bars filled with a tart and tangy homemade cranberry filling. These white chocolate cranberry crumb bars come together quickly and are the perfect balance of sweet and tart!

Holiday baking is upon us! Celebrate all the festive flavors with these  buttery crumb bars filled with a tart and tangy homemade cranberry filling. These white chocolate cranberry crumb bars come together quickly and are the perfect balance of sweet and tart!

  • Author: Sofi | Broma Bakery
  • Prep Time: 15 minutes
  • Cook Time: 30 minutes
  • Total Time: 1 hour
  • Yield: 16 servings
  • Category: dessert
  • Method: oven
  • Cuisine: american
  • Author: Sofi | Broma Bakery
  • Prep Time: 15 minutes
  • Cook Time: 30 minutes
  • Total Time: 1 hour
  • Yield: 16 servings
  • Category: dessert
  • Method: oven
  • Cuisine: american
Units:

Ingredients

for the cookie bar

  • 2/3 cup old fashioned oats
  • 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2/3 cup granulated sugar
  • 2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, cold and cut into small cubes
  • 1 egg, room temperature
  • 2 Tablespoons milk
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

for the cranberry layer

  • 4 cups fresh whole cranberries
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons flour
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 Tablespoon orange zest (zest of one orange)
  • pinch of salt

for the white chocolate drizzle

  • 1/2 cup white chocolate chips, meltes

Instructions

    1. Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a 9 x 9 pan with parchment paper on all sides. Set aside.
    2. In a large bowl combine the oats, flour, sugars, baking soda, and salt. Stir to combine.
    3. Add the butter cubes and use your hands or a pastry cutter to rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture start to clump together and resembles wet sand.
    4. Make a well in the center of the the dry ingredient and add the egg and milk. Use a fork to beat the egg and milk together and stir together until it forms a dough ball.
    5. Press about 2/3 of the mixture into an even layer in your prepared pan. Set aside.
    6. In a large bowl combine all of the ingredients for the cranberry layer and toss combine. Spread the cranberries over the crust, patting into an even layer.
    7. Sprinkle the remaining crust over the cranberries, patting it gently onto the cranberry layer.
    8. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until the crust has puffed up and is golden brown around the edges and the cranberries are bubbling.
    9. Allow to cool completely  before drizzling with white chocolate and slicing into 16 small squares or 8 large ones! Enjoy!

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  1. We’ve made this twice now and it’s so delicious! We did put a few white chocolate chips in the base layer. I also think this should be in a 9 x 13 inch pan instead of the 9 x 9 pan stated in the recipe. The first time it was too thick of a cookie. Second time was just perfect in the 9 x 13. Great recipe! Thanks!

  2. Hi! I have a ton of strawberries that I must use 🙈
    Do you think I could use strawberries instead or is the water content too high? Would you suggest cooking the strawberries first to release some of that or is this a bad idea altogether?

    • Hi Yael! I do think you could, but I would cook them down first to get let some of their water evaporate off! Let us know how it goes!

  3. I made this recipe today after seeing a link to it from TheKitchn.com. I love the final results, but I had to improvise on several points, mainly because my batter for the topping was not of a consistency that one could “sprinkle,” as the recipe says. So, instead, after pressing the bulk of the batter in the pan for the bottom crust and topping it with the berries, I pinched off globs of the remaining dough and arranged them on top of the berries. As I hoped, the bits of batter melded together during the baking process, and the final result looked (and tasted) fine. The final result for me seems more akin to a oobbler than a bar, but the flavor and texture is very pleasing. And I love the addition of the orange zest, which really comes through nicely 🙂

    Also, I took the option of adding about one-half teaspoon each of ground cardamom and coriander to the batter for the crust and topping and of cutting back on the white chocolate drizzle..(In the future, if I were to make the recipe again, I’d also cut back slightly on the amount of sugar that’s tossed with the berries.)

    And one final note: the recipe steps for the batter don’t mention the vanilla extract that’s listed under the ingredients for the cookie bar. I went ahead and added that.






  4. I made this recipe twice, but both times the bottom layer never cooked through. The top is nice and crisp, but the bottom is a gooey mess, even after adding 20 minutes to the baking time. Tastes good, though. I triple-checked the quantities and baking instructions. Any idea what might have gone wrong?

    • I had the same exact problem, even after taking your comment about the convection oven into account and turning that function off.
      The first time I made this, I had inadvertently omitted the egg and the bottom crust turned out firm and crunchy. This time, I followed it exactly and the top was beautiful, while the bottom was a pool of goop that was indistinguishable from the cranberry filling as they had become one layer.

    • Hi Bill! That is so odd! What rack in your oven are you baking the bars at? I’m wondering if the top is getting all the heat and the bottom isn’t getting enough?