Cream together butter and sweetener. Add molasses, salt, eggs, and extracts. Mix thoroughly. Add dry ingredients. Mix well. Fold in the cranberries and white chocolate chips, if using.
Spread in an 8x8 baking dish. Bake for 30-35 min. until golden brown. Allow to cool for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, mix together the cream cheese, butter, sweetener, and lemon extract until fluffy.
Spread icing very gently on cooled bars. The bars can crumble if you aren't gentle. The best way to do this is to drop little blobs of icing on slightly warm bars and spread using an offset spatula. Top with chopped fresh cranberries mixed with sweetener or dried cranberries.
Refrigerate until cold and cut into squares.
Optional - White Chocolate Drizzle:
When I made this recipe sugar free white chocolate was not readily available. Now that it is, feel free to melt some and drizzle on top!
Notes
Molasses: I get a lot of comments from my low carb readers on the use of molasses. I use it for flavor, not sweetness. One teaspoon of molasses has 5 grams of carbs. This recipe makes 16 bars. That is less than .5 grams of carbs from the molasses. If you prefer you can just omit it.Sugar Free Dried Cranberries: It is easy to make your own with this recipe.9x13 pan: My original recipe had thin bars baked in a 9x13 baking pan. If you would prefer thinner bars bake for 20-25 minutes and double the amount of icing.Notes on Sweeteners: