Tenderfoot Hearth: Cooking for Yuletide-Part Three: Cranberry Lemon Crumble Bars

Yup, more dessert for Yule! For me, you cannot have Yuletide without something red and cranberry. I LOVE cranberries. Seriously, I really do. I eat cranberry sauce all year long.
I horde fresh cranberries Thanksgiving through Christmas and stash them in my freezer to use through the rest of the year. Yeah, I love cranberries.

So I was crusin' the ole Internet, seeking a pretty recipe to finish off my trifecta of Yuletide desserts. I looked at cranberry cakes, cranberry breads, cranberry tarts, even some cranberry candy but I finally found a recipe I thought would be delicious. Cranberry Crumble Bars.

A quick look in the pantry and I was good to go. I got the pan ready, all my ingredients out and UHOH! What I thought was Golden Butter cake mix turned out to be Lemon cake mix! Shoot! Then I thought, well, why not give it a try. I like lemon and I love cranberries so why not? If it didn't taste good, I could always toss it.

Trust me, this was a good mistake. The scent wafting out of the oven was divine and OMG! These things are G-O-O-D! Everyone ate them up. Next time I make them (oh yes, there will definitely be a next time) I think I will make a vanilla glaze to drizzle.

I apologize. Somewhere along the way, the pictures of how to make these were lost. Just follow the directions and you'll end up with these lovely gems!

Cranberry Lemon Crumble Bars
(Adapted from allrecipes.com)

1 12oz package fresh cranberries
1 cup White Sugar
3/4 cup Water

1 box Lemon Cake Mix

3/4 cup Butter, melted

2 Eggs

1 cup regular Oats

3/4 Brown Sugar, packed

1 teaspoon ground Cinnamon

Wash and pick out any soft or bad cranberries.

Mix cranberries, white sugar and water in a saucepan.

Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until all cranberries pop.

Simmer for 15 minutes until mixture is thickened and cranberries are soft.

Set aside.

Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix together Lemon cake mix, butter, and eggs.

Stir in oats, brown sugar and cinnamon.

Set aside 1-1/2 cups of mixture.

In an 9x13 pan, press rest of mixture to form a solid crust, trying to keep it the same thickness.

Spread cooled cranberries over crust.

Pinch off pieces of the remaining mixture evenly over the top. I did this by dividing the pan into halves, then fourths, then eights, then sixteenths to make sure it was nice and even.