Cranberry Sauce Crumble Bars

Luscious, buttery, sweet and tart glossy cranberry sauce crumble bars are made with a sweet crumble dough that doubles as a topping. A classic and super easy,  gorgeous and delicious holiday dessert. Save your leftover Christmas cranberry sauce for this recipe! You won’t be able to eat just one!

I just love quick and easy desserts especially these cranberry sauce crumble bars or my cranberry cream cheese bread pudding/french toast. Both recipes are so simple and ridiculously good.  One thing I really loved about the cranberry bars was that I didn’t have to make a separate dough for the crumb topping. This crumble bar recipe actually uses the same dough for the top and bottom crust! Yup. The dough takes 10 minutes to make (or less). You can cut up the butter and flour mixture with a fork or pastry cutter but some people find it’s easier to make the dough in a food processor.  Now let’s get to the cranberry sauce.

Use your own homemade leftover cranberry sauce or if you could use my recipe to make it from scratch.

The cranberry sauce is pretty basic. I added sugar, water, vanilla extract and fresh cranberries into a medium saucepan. I let the cranberries boil for about  7 minutes until the sauce is dark and thick then I let it cool completely.

Once the dough is ready, I divide it then press half of the dough evenly into a lightly greased baking pan. I then add the cooled cranberry sauce and spread it evenly all over the top of the dough. Lastly, I crumble the rest of the dough over the top of the cranberries and lightly press the crumble down with my spoon or spatula. Pop the pan into the oven and that’s pretty much it!

You could easily swap the cranberries for your favorite fruit or jam.  You could even use raw cranberries if you like. I prefer to make a cranberry sauce.

Want to use blueberries or a different type of berry?

• Mix blueberries with 1/3 cup of sugar to 1/2 cup of sugar (depending on the type of berry you use). Some berries tend to be more tart than others.
• two teaspoons of sugar
• two teaspoons of cornstarch
• 2.5 tablespoons of lemon juice.

Spread the fresh or leftover cranberry sauce evenly over the sugar dough then add the crumble topping on top of the fruit. Press the dough down very lightly with a spoon or spatula.

These crumble bars need to cool for a couple of hours. If you want to cut perfect slices you will need to chill them for a couple hours. See notes in the recipe!

Don’t forget to save/pin this recipe and let me know if you try it. I’d love to know!

If you love this recipe, you may also be interested in this easy cranberry cream cheese bread pudding/french toast. You can also use your leftover cranberry sauce for this recipe too. It’s SOOOO delicious. Seriously!