Archive for: cranberry sauce

Cranberry Swirl Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting

November 23, 2010
Cookies - Bar Cookies and Brownies, Recipes
18 comments

Pumpkin Cranberry Swirl Bars

I have to say that these Cranberry Swirl Pumpkin Bars are just about as perfect a dessert as you can get for Thanksgiving without baking a pie. They’re certainly appropriate for fans of pumpkin, cranberries and cream cheese frosting on other occasions, as well, but they really encompass the spirit of Thanksgiving by using so many favorite foods from that holiday.

The pumpkin bars are made with a pumpkin puree and are loaded up with all the spices you might find in pumpkin pie and some toasted pecans for crunch. Before going into the oven, whole berry cranberry sauce is swirled through the batter. This is not only a great way to use up leftover cranberry sauce (homemade or otherwise), but it adds a nice fresh, tart flavor to the bars. The bars bake up to be incredibly moist and tender. They’re great on their own, but a thin layer of cream cheese frosting takes them over the top and makes them indulgent and addictive.

I like adding pecans or walnuts in this recipe for the crunchy texture that they add, but if you’re really craving cranberries, you can add in an additional half cup of dried cranberries or chopped whole cranberries (fresh or frozen) instead of the nuts to bring out the cranberry flavors even more. You could sprinkle some chopped nuts on top of the frosting, or even put a little lemon or orange zest in with the cream cheese for another layer of flavor. Just thinking about the possibilities makes me want to bake another batch – and I’m sure I’ll have no problem finding people to share it with me.

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Maple Brown Sugar Cranberry Sauce

Maple Brown Sugar Cranberry Sauce
I like homemade cranberry sauce because it is so easy and usually much better tasting than anything you can buy. The most basic cranberry sauce recipe calls for whole cranberries, water and sugar. From this basic combination of ingredients, you can really flavor the sauce any way you like. You can add spices or citrus zest, apple or orange juice, and really make the cranberry sauce unique – not to mention make it match your personal flavor preferences or the overall flavors in your meal.

For this cranberry sauce, I decided to play around with the sweeteners in the sauce itself. I used maple syrup and brown sugar to give this cranberry sauce a richer, slightly darker flavor than some cranberry sauces have. The berries themselves are nice and tart, so this sauce isn’t too sweet, but because you can clearly taste the maple and brown sugar notes in the finished dish, it is a wonderful contrast to savory dishes (like turkey and stuffing at Thanksgiving!).

The sauce will thicken as it cools, but it is not as thick as many sauces that come premade from the market. I don’t mind a little extra cranberry juice because it makes the sauce more versatile, perfect for pouring on pancakes and waffles as well as for serving with dinner. If you like yours to be a little thicker, simply cut the water down by half when you’re making the sauce. This sauce can be made a week or so in advance and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

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