Thank you to Nuts.com for sponsoring this post and donating to my local food pantry this holiday season.

7 ingredient 30 minute Cranberry Shortbread Bars are topped with walnuts and date caramel for the ultimate healthier guilt free dessert. Vegan, Gluten Free and Refined Sugar Free.

Everywhere I look everyone seems to be knee deep in holiday cookie baking. Everyone is posting about cookies, or wanting to eat cookies, or wishing somebody baked them cookies. Now, as a non cookie loving person, I’m currently feeling like a bit of an outcast.

Personally, I don’t have anything against cookies – I just never grew up eating them, my mom never baked them, and I only learned about the classic chocolate chip cookie from staying at friends’ houses.

But, to go with the trend, to get into that holiday baking spirit, I had to at least share some sort of baked goods, right? Last week it was my coffee pecan pie bars, and this week it’s cranberry shortbread bars.

While I feel perfectly comfortable making all sorts of savory dishes, when it comes to sweets and baking, I have slightly less experience. This is going to change. I’m starting to experiment more with various flours, allowing me to make all sorts of different desserts that will be gluten-free, vegan and refined sugar free as well.

If I’m going to be baking, it’s only for the healthier desserts.

And that brings us to coconut flour. Have you cooked with coconut flour before? Coconut flour is a great grain free alternative to regular flour and is made from dried coconut meat which has then been ground. It is high in fiber and low in carbs. A win win if you ask me.

Coconut flour was to be the star ingredients of the crust for these cranberry shortbread bars. As for the other ingredients, I used:

maple syrup

coconut oil

dried cranberries

walnuts

dates

lemon

One thing you need to know when baking with coconut flour is that it is super absorbent, meaning you don’t need much of it. As a general rule of thumb you’ll only need 1/4 to 1/3 cup coconut flour to replace 1 cup of regular flour in a recipe.

For all my specialty flours, nuts, and dried fruit I go to Nuts.com, a family-owned company selling with high quality nuts, dried fruit, snacks, and pantry essentials. They carry over 3,000 products including artisan and hard-to-find products as well as hundreds of certified gluten-free and organic items. And this holiday season they have been generous enough to donate hundreds of dollars worth of staples to my local food pantry as well as host a giveaway right here on this blog!

To make the crust for these cranberry shortbread bars you just need to beat the maple syrup and coconut oil until smooth and creamy, before adding in the coconut flour. Mix by hand and pat down into a baking dish or pie pan (if you’re me and do not own any rectangular baking dishes) and bake for 10 minutes.

I’m telling you, this dessert comes together in no time! For the topping make the date caramel, by literally just blending dates in a high speed blender (see pictures in my caramel cheesecake post). For the star of these cranberry shortbread bars you’ll want to mix crushed walnuts with chopped cranberries, lemon zest and lemon juice.

Once the crust is baked, let it cool, add a thin layer of date caramel, sprinkle with the cranberry walnut mix and thin drizzle more date caramel on top.

That’s all you need for these delicious cranberry shortbread bars with crushed walnuts. Cut into bars and take a big bite.

I personally loved how delicate the coconut flour shortbread crust came out. With only three key ingredients the crust could not be easier to make. Walnuts and cranberries make a great combination – especially when mixed with lemon zest this made for the perfect topping. And then a drizzle of date caramel really tops things off!

And now I’m happy to share a GIVEAWAY! Nuts.com is giving away $100 of product on their site. Be sure to enter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

