Add a subtle touch of red and green to your holiday baking with these Cranberry Pistachio Cookie Bars!
These festive sugar cookie bars are buttery and flavorful, and perfect for packaging up as gifts, or adding to your Christmas cookie trays.
How to Make Cranberry Pistachio Cookie Bars
Cranberry Pistachio Cookie Bars
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¾ cup dried cranberries
- ½ cup chopped pistachios
- 2 teaspoons fresh orange zest the zest from one large orange
Instructions
- Prepare a 9”x13” baking pan by lining with parchment paper. Leave the paper long enough so you can pull up on the paper to remove the bars once baked.
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- In a large bowl, add flour, baking powder and salt. Stir and set aside.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, add butter and beat until smooth. Add sugar and blend until fully incorporated. Add eggs, one at a time, and then add vanilla. Blend until well incorporated.
- While slowly mixing, add flour mixture a little at a time, and blend just until incorporated. Do not over mix.
- Add cranberries, pistachios and orange zest and blend.
- Scoop the dough into prepared pan. Add large spoonfuls of dough all over the pan, not just in one big clump. Lay a piece of plastic wrap over the clumps of dough, and then press down on the dough until the dough is evenly pressed into the pan.
- Bake in preheated oven for 20-24 minutes. The dough should appear baked, have a dull finish, but does not need to be golden.
- Allow to cool fully in the pan before removing and cutting into bars. Store bars in an airtight container up to one week.
Nutrition
Wishing you so much love and joy this beautiful season!
I hope you are able to make time before this year comes to a close to just sit with family and friends and enjoy their company… along with a few delicious treats!
I plan to do just that, and will likely not post again until the new year.
Of course I have LOTS of delicious recipes here to keep you busy!
Here are a few of my Christmas favorites…
Happy baking!
Disclosure – I created this recipe as part of an ongoing partnership with Challenge Dairy. Partnering with brands I love allows me to provide you high quality content at no cost to you. I only work with brands I use and love. All images, text and opinions are my own.
I decided to try this recipe because I had some dark chocolate covered pistachios left from the holidays. Yummm! It turned out great the bar cookies were so fast to make. I really like the idea of lining the pan with parchment paper. No cookie was broken and clean up was so easy. –Thanks Glory
These look like the ultimate Christmas cookies!
YUM! These look delicious and so easy to make!