Fresh Cranberry Bars

Recipe by The View From the Great Island

These buttery shortbread crumble bars are bursting with fresh tart cranberries and the combination is pure heaven!

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature )
• ⅔ cup sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tbsp vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)
• 2 cups cake flour (you can use regular flour)
• 1½ cups fresh cranberries (rinsed and patted dry)

Method

1. Set the oven to 350F
2. Cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in the salt and vanilla.
3. Mix in the flour, just until combined.
4. Line an 8x8 or 9x9 baking pan with parchment paper or foil with overhanging edges, this will make it easy to lift the bars out of the pan for cutting. Alternatively you can just lightly spray the pan with non-stick spray.
5. Using your fingers, pat 2/3 of the dough into the bottom of the pan. The dough will be soft and sticky, do your best to cover the entire surface of the bottom, but you don't need to compact the dough, just lightly pat it down.
6. Spread the cranberries out across the dough, and then, using your fingers again, crumble the remaining dough on top. Try to get the dough in smallish crumbles, but don't worry about covering all the cranberries, they will show through.
7. Bake for about 45-50 minutes until just beginning to get golden around the edges.
8. Cool on a rack.

View the recipe instructions at The View From the Great Island