Cranberry Lemon Bars

After the berries had begun to pop, I used an immersion blender to purée the cranberry sauce and cooked in on simmer for approximately 30 minutes until it was very think and jammy. Spread the cranberry sauce over the baked crust an allowed it to cool for 15-20 mins before pouring the lemon custard on top. This resulted in attractive, distinct layers of fruit when the bars were sliced.

After reading the comments of others, we used an 8 inch square pan with half a recipe of crust, half a recipe of cranberry filling, and the full amount of lemon filling. The baking in step 7 took about 25 minutes. Our bars were delicious, with three distinct layers—just like the picture!

Can the sugar be reduced in the cranberry filling? Usually when I make whole cranberry sauce, I use much less sugar and it gels nicely when chilled. Still spreadable.

Agree with others who said this recipe was poorly worded. The ingredients for filling section should be divided into two distinct parts, or at least have the sugar amount say “divided” so you don’t dump all the sugar into the cranberry sauce and leave none for the lemon layer! For the distinct layers to form, 1) cook the cranberry sauce down until it’s completely smooth and the cranberries are no longer intact berries (30 min). 2) also consider doubling the lemon layer - not enough to cover!

I'd love to make this gluten free for a friend with celiac. Has anyone tried this with a gluten free flour?

I made this in an 8x8 glass Pyrex baking dish. I would absolutely recommend. I kept all of the same measurements and it resulted in a beautiful thick crust, a moderate but incredibly flavorful cranberry layer, and a thick (I estimate about 2/3 inch thick) lemon layer. The flavor is on point. The baking process is simple. The only thing that changed for me (because of the smaller glass baking dish) was the cooking time. I baked it for a total of 30 minutes before the center set.

Reduced sugar for lemon filling to 3/4 c and cranberry jam to 1/2 c. As written, not enough lemon filling to make a distinct layer: cranberry bleeding through. Next time will experiment with either doubling lemon filling or decreasing size of pan.

Cranberry filling 1 12ounce (340gram) bag of fresh or frozen cranberries 3/4Cup granulated sugar 3 Tablespoons water The zest of two lemons Crust-you probably only need 1 ¼ recipe but it isn’t easy to translate into measurable amounts without a scale. Use just enough for a thin but adequate crust layer 2 ¼ Cups all purpose flour ½ Cup granulated sugar 1 ½ teaspoons salt 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla 2 ¼ Cups melted butter Lemon filling 1 cup lemon juice ½ Cup flour ¼ teaspoon salt 2cups sugar 6 eggs

These are delicious! I might have made them in a smaller pan, because the lemon part ended up quite thin. Also, for those asking if you could use less sugar, you probably can, but it is quite tart with the amount of sugar in the recipe. Last - an almond crust would be delicious!

These came out great! I used parchment instead of foil and very slightly reduced the sugar in the cranberry and lemon fillings. The directions are not clearly written so make sure you read thoroughly. Steps 2 and 3 are for the crust, steps 4 and 5 are for the lemon filling. It was confusing at first and could be easy to mix up the measurements.

I made these with two tweaks based on comments and they turned out beautiful and delicious, with distinctive layers. Very successful. 1. I added 50 percent more to the lemon layer 2. I used the immersion blender on the cranberry layer so it was smoother.

After reading the notes I decided to use Melissa Clark’s Lemon Bars with Olive Oil as the base recipe, then added the cranberry layer per this one. Used a 9x13 pan: without the cranberries there wouldn’t have been enough custard but with them, delish. Big hit. Even my daughter-in-law, a professional baker, gave these high praise.

Came together pretty well, but recipe needs editing. As a pretty experienced baker, still got tripped up when I added the wrong amount of sugar to the crust . Luckily, I realized it when I got to the lemon prep part and pulled the crust out of the oven and remixed. Please restate amounts in step 3 .Also, well-written recipes tell you what part of the oven to bake in (upper third seems to work). Freezing notes are appreciated, especially at Thanksgiving. Tart and Delicious and worth it.

Can parchment paper be substituted for the aluminum foil?

Maybe an almond flour crust? Really easy and splash of almond extract amps it up a little. Nice change. Tons of recipes available.