Cranberry Apple Walnut Crumb Bars

These cranberry-apple-walnut crumb bars are super easy to make and will be the superstar of your holiday dessert table. 

With fresh cranberries, toasted walnuts, and apples, these tasty bars are so festive and fun, and are nice enough to take to both potlucks and holiday parties. They're fabulous for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

With a base and a topping of ground toasted walnuts, flour, and lots of butter, along with sugar, baking powder, and salt, and with a couple of adjustments, you only need to make one mixture for both. While the base is baking, you can make the filling in less than 10 minutes and have it ready to go. 

When I pulled these from the oven, it was very hard to let them cool before trying them. When I did, I immediately ate two. 

Even though I've shared two other cranberry bar recipes, including cranberry crumble bars (with almond flour and cranberry jam) and cranberry oatmeal bars, these bars are pretty special and well worth adding another cranberry bar recipe, especially with the toasted walnuts in both the flour and the topping as well as the dried apples with their concentrated flavor. 

Ingedients in These Bars:

For the Crust and Topping: 

Walnuts: You toast the walnuts until they are fragrant, and, after setting aside half of them for the topping, grind the rest into a walnut flour that you mix with all purpose flour. 

From the Pantry: Granulated sugar, all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt. 

Butter: You will need a cup (2 sticks) of cold unsalted butter. 

Egg: After you've mixed the crust and topping ingredients, add the egg to the crust mixture. 

For the Filling:

Fresh Cranberries: You can also use frozen, but it's nice to have fresh cranberries for the final addition to cranberries to the filling. Fortunately, frozen cranberries hold up very well, even after a year in the freezer. 

Chopped Dried Apples: I ended up making my own. My toaster oven has a dehydration setting so I used a couple of apples we had to make them the day before. You can also make them in a convection oven. 

Granulated Sugar and Salt. 

Pure Maple Syrup. The real stuff. 

Apple Brandy: You could also use Applejack, which is an apple cider spirit. I happened to have a small amount of apple brandy left from a couple of my favorite cocktails, the Applejack Rabbit, and the Apple Brown Derby. They're worth keeping a bottle of the brandy on hand. You could also substitute regular brandy, bourbon, or skip the alcohol. 

To Make These Bars:

First, in a food processor, grind half of the toasted walnuts with the sugar. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt and pulse. Add the cold butter and pulse until the dough forms small pea-sized crumbles. Then, take out a cup of the mixture to set aside for the topping. 

After that, add the egg to the mixture left in the bowl and pulse until the mix begins to clump. Press the mixture into your parchment or foil lined baking pan and dock the dough with a fork. Bake it for about 20 minutes. 

While the crust is baking, make the filling in a medium saucepan by combining most of the cranberries, apples, sugar, maple syrup, apple brandy, and salt. Cook the mix over medium heat for about 6 minutes, until it is syrupy and the cranberries have mostly popped. Stir in the rest of the cranberries and let the filling cool. Spread the filling over the base. 

Coarsely chop the reserved walnuts and add them into the topping mixture. Clump the mixture with your fingers and sprinkle it over the topping. 

Finally, bake the bars for about 25 minutes and let cool for about an hour. They will still be warm and ready to eat. 

Equipment You May Need:

9 inch by 13 inch baking pan, such as a cake pan. 

Food processor. 

Quarter or half sheet pan, for toasting the walnuts. 

Three quart sauce pan, for cooking the cranberry mixture. 

Storage and Serving Suggestion:

These bars can easily be made in advance and will keep well in an airtight container for up to four days at room temperature. 

You can serve them warm on baking day, or at room temperature the next couple of days. They are very tasty topped with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream. 

These bars were a big hit with everyone who tried them! I hope you will try them too! 

More Christmas Sweets Recipes:

• Gingerbread Cupcakes from A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures
• Pumpkin Bread Pudding from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Church Window Candy from Jen Around the World
• Peppermint Ice Cream from Art of Natural Living
• Reindeer Chocolate Bark from Blogghetti
• Cranberry Apple Walnut Crumb Bars from Karen's Kitchen Stories

Be sure to follow our #ChristmasSweetsWeek Pinterest Board for more ideas. 

 

Cranberry Apple Walnut Crumb Bars

Yield: 24 bars

Author: Karen Kerr

Prep time: 20 MinCook time: 45 MinTotal time: 1 H & 5 M

These cranberry-apple-walnut crumb bars are super easy to make and will be the superstar of your holiday dessert table. 

Ingredients

For the Crust and Topping

• 1 cup walnuts, toasted
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 11 1/4 ounces (2 1/2 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 ounces (2 sticks/1 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten

Filling

• 12 ounces (3 cups) fresh or frozen cranberries
• 1 cup chopped dried apples
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons apple brandy
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Instructions

Crust and Topping

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F with a rack in the middle. Line a 9 inch by 13 inch pan such as a cake pan with parchment paper and spray with spray oil. Set aside.
2. In the bowl of a standard sized food processor, grind 1/2 cup of the walnuts with the granulated sugar. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt and pulse to mix. Add the butter pieces and pulse until the butter is pea-sized, about 6 one-second pulses. Measure out 1 heaping cup of the mixture and transfer it to a medium bowl. Set aside.
3. Add the egg to the food processor and pulse until the mixture begins to clump. Press the dough into the bottom of the pan with your hands and then dock the dough all over with a fork. Bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes, until lightly browned around the edges. Cool the crust on a rack.
4. Chop the remaining 1/2 cup of walnuts and add them to the reserved crust dough in the bowl. Using your hands, knead and pinch the dough into clumps. Set aside.

Filling

1. While the crust is baking, add 2 cups of the cranberries, dried apples, granulated sugar, maple syrup, and apple brandy to a 3 quart saucepan. Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved and most of the cranberries have popped. The mixture should be thickened, about 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the salt and the remaining cup of cranberries.
2. Spread the cranberry mixture evenly over the top of the crust. Crumble the rest of the flour mixture/topping over the top of the cranberry mixture in small lumps.
3. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, until the topping is light golden. Cool for about an hour in the pan on a wire rack before cutting.
4. Lift the bars (uncut) out of the pan by the parchment paper and place them on a cutting board. Cut into 24 bars.

Nutrition Facts

Calories

234

Fat (grams)

11 g

Sat. Fat (grams)

5 g

Carbs (grams)

32 g

Fiber (grams)

2 g

Net carbs

30 g

Sugar (grams)

19 g

Protein (grams)

3 g

Cholesterol (grams)

28 mg

https://www.karenskitchenstories.com/2025/11/cranberry-apple-walnut-crumb-bars.html

Karen's Kitchen Stories

cranberry, bars,

dessert

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @karenskitchenstories.com on instagram and hashtag it #karenskitchenstories

Recipe adapted from an old Fine Cooking Magazine (no longer publishing) from Oct/Nov 2011.