Say goodbye to toned-down lime bars – these Cranberry Lime Bars pack a serious sweet-tart citrusy punch! With a cranberry shortbread crust and a zesty lime filling, they’re delicious year-round, but especially festive for Christmas.
I really wanted to share these cranberry lime bars with you at the beginning of the week, so you’d have time to make them for Christmas.
But then my toddler was sick. And I was sick. And I had to make all our holiday cards, which I was unable to do last week because of said sick toddler. Then there’s my actual full-time job in the lab, and the gym, and… now it’s Friday, two days before Christmas.
But then I remembered that the day before Thanksgiving, I had the most unique visitors to my blog ever in a single day. The day before Thanksgiving, thousands of you were still searching for food ideas.
Fellow procrastinators! My people! Welcome – this is what you should make to add to your Christmas desserts.
Not a procrastinator? Not a problem. These cranberry lime bars are way too good to save up for once a year. Make them next week, or next month, or in the middle of summer.
A zesty sweet-tart lime bar while sitting by the pool sipping lemonade? Yes, please!
Maybe you’re not familiar with lime bars. You know lemon bars? The mostly sweet, a little tart, dessert bar with a custardy filling on a shortbread crust? Pretty similar. Except using lime (obviously!) — and a whole lot more. More lime juice, more lime zest — more flavor all around.
These cranberry lime bars pack a serious lime punch. I love bold, bright flavors, and these reflect that. If I’m eating a lime bar, I want it to taste like lime (novel idea, really). So many citrus desserts are tooth-meltingly sweet with just a tiny hint of lemon or lime – not these!
I was a little nervous that I went overboard, but every single person who tried this at our holiday party (or the leftovers I brought to work) commented on how much they loved the bumped-up lime flavor. Lime lovers unite!
And in order to make these cranberry lime bars, we’ll start with a buttery, soft, shortbread crust, studded with flecks of cranberries. The cranberry flavor pairs so nicely with lime and adds a perfect pop of red — beautiful year-round, or especially fitting for the holidays.
I like to make everything easy and use a food processor to chop the cranberries, then make the rest of the shortbread crust right in there.
No food processor? No problem. Chop the cranberries by hand, whisk together the other crust ingredients, and then cut in the butter by hand.
Par-bake the crust for a few minutes first. We need it to be firm and crispy enough to hold our lime filling!
While the crust cools, make the lime custard. It’s really hard. Are you ready? Do you have a bowl? Do you have a whisk? You’re ready! Whisk the ingredients together until fully combined, then pour over the crust and pop in the oven.
How do we get such a smooth custard layer with such little work? The ingredients are doing the work for us! We can understand this better with my favorite subject… kitchen chemistry!
Kitchen Chemistry
Lime juice is highly acidic due to its citric acid content. This acidity denatures (unfolds) the proteins in the eggs. As the lime bars bake in the oven, the denatured proteins begin to coagulate, or clump together, transitioning from a liquid egg and lime juice mixture into a firm custard-like filling. The heat causes the denatured proteins to bond together, forming a network that traps in water, resulting in a semi-solid like texture.
Remove the bars from the oven, cool to room temperature, and then pop into the refrigerator for an hour or two before slicing.
If you’ve baked with lime before, you probably know that lime desserts turn out more yellow than green. I added two drops of green food coloring to the filling to counteract this – both because I wanted the holiday-appropriate green and red pairing, but also because I wanted to make it very clear that these are lime and not lemon.
Feel free to omit it if you are not into food coloring; just know that they will look pale yellow without it (and even more yellow should you use key lime juice/zest instead!).
Say goodbye to toned-down lime bars – these cranberry lime bars pack a serious sweet-tart citrusy punch!
Cranberry lime bars can be kept at room temperature for 1-2 days, or refrigerated for up to a week.
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