By The week between Christmas and New Year is its own country and I have always loved it: the decorations still up, the presents integrated into the household, the year turning the corner toward its end. The twins are almost two. They have been in the world almost two years and they are completely themselves in ways I could not have predicted from the NICU and could not have predicted from the apartment with the rearranged crib furniture and could not have predicted from the 3 AM feedings. They are Owen and Nora. They are specific and real and mine.
2024 was the year Babcia Rose died. It was also the year I made her golabki for the first time without her in the room, and then made them for Christmas Eve, and they were close enough to serve. It was the year I opened the spiral notebook and started cooking from it. It was the year the school year was good and hard. It was the year Nora started running and Owen started building. It was the year Dziadek Wally put his hand on the empty chair back twice at Thanksgiving and once at Christmas. It was the year Ryan was promoted to lieutenant candidate, which he told me quietly at dinner one night in November and which I celebrated and which he accepted with the particular way he accepts good things.
I am going to make pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day. As always. Babcia Rose's tradition, which is now my tradition, which is the way traditions work. I put the pork shoulder in the slow cooker. I set it to run on New Year's morning. I let the apartment fill with the smell of luck and January and the things that have always been true.
New Year's Eve we stayed home with the babies. Ryan fell asleep at eleven. I was awake at midnight, alone in the quiet apartment, watching the year turn on the kitchen clock. 2025. Here we go. What are we walking into? I do not know. That is the point of beginnings. You cannot know yet. You go forward anyway.
The pork shoulder goes in the slow cooker on New Year’s morning — that part is settled, that part is Babcia Rose’s, that part is not up for reinvention. But the days before New Year’s, the quiet in-between days when the twins are napping and Ryan is at work and the apartment smells faintly of pine and the spiral notebook is sitting on the counter: those days want something smaller. I made these cranberry bars the afternoon of the 30th, while Owen was asleep and Nora was pulling ornaments off the lower branches, and the tartness of the cranberries against the cool sour cream felt exactly right for a week that has been sweet and hard in equal measure.
Sour Cream Cranberry Bars
Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 24 bars
Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup sour cream
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries, roughly chopped
- 1 teaspoon orange zest (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat and prep. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan and set aside.
- Make the oat crust. In a large bowl, beat butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add flour, oats, baking soda, and salt, mixing until crumbly. Press about two-thirds of this mixture firmly and evenly into the bottom of the prepared pan to form the crust.
- Make the sour cream filling. In a separate bowl, whisk together sour cream, granulated sugar, egg, vanilla, and cornstarch until smooth. Fold in the chopped cranberries and orange zest if using.
- Assemble. Pour the sour cream and cranberry mixture evenly over the oat crust, spreading gently to the edges.
- Add the topping. Scatter the remaining oat crumble mixture over the cranberry layer, pressing it down lightly so it adheres.
- Bake. Bake for 33–38 minutes, until the top is golden and the filling is just set and no longer jiggles in the center.
- Cool and cut. Allow the bars to cool completely in the pan — at least 1 hour — before cutting into squares. They slice cleanest when fully cooled or even slightly chilled.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 210 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 10g | Carbs: 28g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 95mg