Cranberry Bliss...

Baking is one of my favourite hobbies, period.  But, Christmas baking is even MORE fun!  I already posted about our big bake-fest, but I decided to do a few other recipes just for fun.  This one was a first for me.  I googled 'Starbucks Cranberry Bliss Bars' and came up with a whole realm of suggestions, but this is the one I singled out.  I have to give bragger rights to top secret chef Todd Wilbur for his version of this creation. 

Cake:
1 cup butter at room temp.
1 1/4 cups light brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cups diced, dried cranberries ( I chopped mine up fine in my mini food processor)
6 ounces (squares) of while chocolate, cut up


Frosting:
4 ounces (1/2 block) cream cheese softened
3 cups icing sugar
4 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup diced, dried cranberries


Drizzled Icing:
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 tbsp milk
2 tsp vegetable shortening


Preheat oven to 350*F
To make cake:  Beat butter and sugar together until smooth. 
Add eggs, vanilla, ginger and salt, beat well.
Gradually mix in flour until smooth.
Mix 3/4 cup cranberries and chopped chocolate into batter by hand
Pour batter into greased 9x13" pan.  Spread evenly across pan
Bake 35-40 minutes or until cake is light brown on edges
Let cool


Frosting: combine cream cheese, 3 cups powdered sugar, lemon juice and vanilla with electric mixer until smooth.  Once cake is cooled, spread over top of cake.
Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup cranberries over the frosting.


Drizzle:  whisk together 1/2 cup icing sugar, milk and shortening.  Drizzle over the cranberries in sweeping motion.  ( I used piping bag with small round tip)


Once the cake has set/cooled for several hours, slice once, lengthwise down the centre, then 3 more times width-wise.  This makes 8 large squares.  Then, I cut each of these squares into 3 finger length slices.  You could also slice them the 'starbucks' way and cut each square diagonally creating 16 triangular slices.