Let’s say it’s the day after Thanksgiving and you have a glut of cranberries. What’s a person to do? You could make cranberry muffins for breakfast, that’s an idea. You could make Melissa Clark’s sticky cranberry gingerbread and people would be tickled. Or you could make what I recently made from Genevieve Ko’s 2016 cookbook, Better Baking: Cranberry Magic Bars. They’ll put a smile on lots of faces.
I’m all about transitional recipes and these bars whisk us from turkey season to ho ho ho times. You start with a standard graham cracker base, plus a few toasted pecans for good measure.
Bring on the Cranberries
Next up, a layer of cooked cranberries that might look a lot like the cranberry sauce you served on T-Day.
In fact, if your leftover cranberry sauce is sweet and not savory (let’s avoid onions here), I bet you could just spread that on instead of making a fresh batch.
Toppings Galore
Now comes the fun stuff. What puts the “magic” in cranberry magic bars? Toasted pecans, coconut, and chocolate.
Side rant: I’m a big believer in toasting my nuts these days before using them in a baking recipe. It seems counterintuitive: if it’s going in the oven anyway, why should you pre-toast it? (I actually just watched an episode of Kids’ Baking Championship where an eight year old asked the same thing.) But toasting your nuts separately draws out their oils, changes their color, and brings out a toastiness you won’t get if you just toss them into your cookies or bars.
The coconut, on the other hand, will toast in the oven. (It goes from white to golden pretty fast, hence no need for pre-toasting.)
Cut ’em Up and Serve
All you do, once the toppings are on, is bake this for twenty minutes. If you use parchment paper, and let it cool in there, it’s a cinch just to lift it out.
Letting them cool is the hardest part. Then you cut into sixteen squares and serve ’em up. They work as a snack, a dessert, even a decadent breakfast. So don’t throw your cranberries away! Make some cranberry magic.
Cranberry Magic Bars
Ingredients
Method
- Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F. Coat an 8-inch square baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Line the bottom and sides with foil or parchment paper, and spray again.
- Combine the graham crackers, ¼ cup (27 g) of the pecans, and the 3 tablespoons sugar in a food processor and pulse until the crackers and nuts are finely ground. Add the butter and pulse until fine crumbs form.
- Transfer the mixture to the prepared pan and press into an even layer. To get a completely flat bottom, press in the mixture with the bottom of a dry measuring cup.
- Bake the crust until the edges are golden brown and the center is dry to the touch, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. (Leave the oven on.)
- Meanwhile, combine the cranberries, orange juice, and the remaining ½ cup (104 g) sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Boil, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is the consistency of jam and has reduced to 1 cup, 8 to 10 minutes.
- Pour the topping over the crust and spread in an even layer. Sprinkle the coconut and the remaining ½ cup (55 g) pecans evenly on top and gently press into the cranberry mixture. Scatter the chocolate evenly over the top and press it in.
- Bake the bars until the filling is gently bubbling and the coconut is golden brown, about 20 minutes.
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