Hope the year 2009 has started off with a lot of hope and joy for all of you! I baked these cranberry bars a couple of days ago from Joy of Baking site. I think these bars are the perfect way of starting the New Year because it’s both sweet and sour at the same time, just like our lives. I bought and tasted fresh cranberries last week, for the first time. It’s sour and mildly bitter too. I have eaten something very similar in India, but I don’t remember the name of the fruit and I’m sure that it was not red in color. Sugar has to be added to make these berries edible.
This recipe for cranberry bars has the perfect proportion of sweetness and sourness. I didn’t make any changes to the recipe or procedure and the bars came out perfectly. Only one note though, the recipe mentions 2/3 cup of sugar, which is actually 10 and 2/3 tablespoons, which is not easy to measure exactly. So I used 11 tablespoons of sugar instead.
If you want a sweet bar then this is not the recipe for you. You should check these cookie bars instead. On the other hand if you are looking for something mildly sweet and sour, these cranberry bars are perfect.
I just made these cranberry shortbread bars to take to my in-laws for Thanksgiving and they came out great! I love your website in general, and your featured recipes have ALWAYS proven extra special!
I do wish I could reduce the butter and, especially, the sugar in the recipe. I’m not ready to try out substitutions on my own though; any suggestions?
Thanks!
Thanks Vanya. I too don’t experiment in all recipes. You can try substituting vegan margarine instead of butter. I think reducing the quantity of butter in this recipe would result in hard crust.
Delicious!!! I see lot of cranberry recipes recently.
Yes, yours has come out pretty well. Shall try this out sometime..bookmarked the original one. N as per your say, shall go by the cup measure only. Tks again.
hi madhuram…glad you visited divinetaste. You have a lovely site here. Nice to get know you. 🙂 Cheers!
A very Happy New year to you.
Looks really beautiful. We don’t get cranberries here, but I could substitute for them.
These look perfectly lovely.Thanks for letting me know you are planning to try my sago/ sabudana dosa hope you all like it as much as we did…eagerly waiting for your feedback:-)
yummy looking bars! nice pic 😛
Lovely and perfect.I too try out the recipes from joyof baking.These look very perfect.
looks yummy madhu,
Madhu, the bars are very tempting!Loved the shot.
I too love Stephanie’s recipes, but her measures baffle me..am sometimes scared to try as her cup versus gms measure is not standard one that we use…dont want the end product to go into a bin! Hence I just drool at her creations, read her recipes n return! 😀 THATS WONDERFUL TO BEGIN 2009 with! HAPPY 2009 to U N URS!
Fortunately both the recipes I tried (the other one being the vegan christmas fruitcake) from the site had come out very well. I used the cup measurements only.
Love it Madhu. Looks perfect and i love mildly sweet recipes too.
Looks perfect, bet it tasted great.
Looks very nice and delicious! Regarding the sweetness, I guess shortbread are generally less sweet because whenever I have made them I have noticed that! In fact that is the reason why I like them:) Great start for 2009 😉