Cupcakes, Cranberries & Christmas

I have been a baking fool lately, starting with 340 mini cupcakes that adorned a Christmas Tree for the Anacortes Celebration of Trees last weekend. My wonderful Mom did the cupcake wrapper garland as I spent the day before decorating the tree, baking, frosting, decorating and packaging all the little cuppies that were to go on the tree. From 6am until almost midnight I worked on those cute little cupcakes, altho at the time I wasn't calling them cute.

 Then I packaged them all to hang on the tree ...

Then I spent Thursday morning hanging them on the tree ...

The result was a wonderful cupcake tree with a dozen Extreme Red Velvet Cupcakes & a Giant Chocolate Port Cupcake in a chocolate holiday wrapper for the winning bidder!  My tree brought in $600!!! The winner also gets a cupcake catered party whenever they want!

 
Now one would think that with all that baking I would be sick of it ... well no, not really. So as I was surfing Tastespotting I can across a Mock Cranberry Bliss Bar recipe, you know like the Starbucks kind!!! So of course I had to try those, now I have to get them out of my house!!! These are so good and I think much better then Starbucks (who's I find a bit dry)

So thanks to My Little Mochi I give you my rendition of Cranberry Bliss!!

Faux Cranberry Bliss Bars
makes about 32 triangles with extra sides

cake:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup dried cranberries, chopped
6 ounces (about 3/4 cup) white chocolate chips (or chopped white chocolate)

frosting:
6 ounces cream cheese, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
1 T. fresh lemon juice
the zest from 1 fresh lemon, diced
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup dried cranberries, chopped, set aside

drizzling icing:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1-2 tablespoons room temp milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, mix together the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Add eggs, vanilla, ginger, and salt. Mix well.
2. Gradually add flour. Mix until smooth. Stir in cranberries and white chocolate.
3. Pour the batter into a well-greased 9×13-inch pan. Use a spatula to evenly spread the batter in the pan. Bake 25-35 minutes, until edges are light brown. Allow to cool completely before frosting.
4. Make the frosting: Mix together the cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice until completely smooth.
5. Make the drizzling icing: In a small bowl, whisk together powdered sugar, milk and melted butter. Use enough milk to make a thick but drizzly consistency. I used closer to 2 tablespoons.
6. When the cake/cookie is fully cooled, frost. Sprinkle the top with ½ c. chopped cranberries.
7. Put the drizzling icing into a ziploc bag and snip off a tiny bit of the corner. Drizzle the icing on top in whatever pattern you like.Let sit in a cool place for about 2 hours (if you can stand it) Cut into squares or triangles.