Cherry Pie Cookie Bars
Cherry pie in bar form! Yesssss! These cherry pie cookie bars are amazing!
I’ve waited my whole life for a cherry pie bar recipe like this.
It seems like fresh cherry season is here for a few fleeting moments each summer, and I try to take advantage of every second because I love fresh cherries more than life.
I actually despise cherry-flavored things, but fresh cherries? I can’t stop.
We live close-ish to several u-pick cherry orchards, and this year, in particular, we ended up with more cherries than we knew what to do with.
After eating so many, I thought we’d all be sick…and with bottled cherries still on the shelf from last year, I decided to do the only sensible thing and work on a perfect cherry pie cookie bar recipe (with a homemade cherry filling!).
With a super soft buttery cookie dough crust, the sweet and tart cherry filling is obviously the real star of the cookie bar show here.
Can you use frozen cherries?
I can hear the question now! And the answer is…I don’t know. I didn’t try it because the 15 pounds of cherries on my counter were calling my name.
But I think frozen cherries stand a great chance of working. If it were me, I’d thaw them completely and then drain off excess liquid before using in the recipe.
But back to fresh cherries. If you have them, put them to good use in these delectable cherry pie cookie bars!
The cherry filling develops a jam-like consistency popping up through the nooks and crannies of the sugar cookie dough.
Yum.
To be honest, I consider the glaze optional. It’s tasty. Really tasty. And a wonderfully sweet compliment to the cherries and cookie dough crust.
But you could leave it off for a less sweet approach to the bars. Although the hint of lemon in the glaze IS quite delicious next to the cherry bars.
In addition (yes, there’s more!), while these bars are super tasty cooled and cut into squares, if you want to take it up, like, a hundred notches, serve them room temp or slightly warmed with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Seriously, they are incredible.
I don’t know if I’ve confessed this before, but cherry pie is probably one of my favorite desserts in the entire world (I know, who am I??), and these cherry pie cookie bars are right up there with my love for cherry pie.
I hardly know myself with that statement.
Basically, they are worthy of your fresh cherries. And that’s saying a lot if fresh cherries in your store are as expensive as fresh cherries in my store.
Ok, sorry, one last final note. I am not usually a fan of almond extract. I almost always leave it out of recipes that call for it because it so easily overpowers everything else.
But the 1/8 teaspoon called for in this recipe is perfection. Almond and cherries are often paired together, and in this case, don’t be like me and let temptation urge you to leave it out.
A couple drops will make you and these cherry bars very happy.
Phew! I think I’m done now. If you’re looking for the perfect little summer dessert for upcoming holidays, potlucks, or just because you also happened to pick WAY too many cherries, look no further.
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Three Years Ago: Whole Grain Pumpkin Blueberry Muffins
Four Years Ago: My Favorite Breakfast Smoothie
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Cherry Pie Cookie Bars
Ingredients
Cherry Pie Filling:
- 5 cups fresh Bing/sweet cherries, pitted and halved (about 1 1/2 to 2 pounds) – see note
- ⅓ cup (71 g) granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch, use more for a thicker filling
- 1-2 drops almond extract
Cookie Dough:
- 1 cup (227 g) salted butter, softened
- 1 cup (212 g) granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons milk or buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 ¼ cups (320 g) all-purpose flour
Glaze:
- 1 cup (114 g) powdered sugar
- Zest of 1 lemon, about a teaspoon
- 1 tablespoon milk, plus more as needed
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. For easier cleanup, line a 9X13-inch baking pan with aluminum foil. Lightly grease the foil with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, stir together the cherries, sugar, cornstarch, and almond extract. Let sit while making the crust.
- For the cookie dough, with an electric mixer (handheld or stand mixer), cream together the butter, sugar, milk (or buttermilk), baking powder, baking soda, and salt until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add the egg and egg yolk. Mix until well-combined.
- Add the flour and mix until just combined and no dry streaks remain.
- Take 2/3 of the dough (more or less) and press into the bottom of the pan. It helps to drop pieces relatively evenly across the bottom before spreading into an even layer. I use my hands – makes it super easy.
- Give the cherry filling a good stir and pour over the top of the bottom crust. Pinch off quoter-size pieces of the remaining dough and drop on top. It won’t cover the cherry filling all the way but will puff and spread while baking.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes until the cherry filling is bubbling and the edges of the dough are lightly golden. Let the bars cool completely.
- For the glaze, whisk together the powdered sugar, lemon zest and milk until thick and pourable (add milk a little at a time if needed to thin the consistency).
- Drizzle the glaze over the top of the bars. Serve the bars at room temperature or slightly warm with ice cream.
Notes
Recommended Products
Recipe Source: adapted from a recipe in The Pioneer Woman’s Magazine Summer 2018
The reason people are having such mixed results is the flour measurement. 2 1/4 cups is 270g. The weight provided is 320g, or 2 2/3 cups. That’s a big difference, and explains why some people are ending up with mush or cake instead of a cookie base. If you measure in cups you’re definitely going to have an issue. I’ve made this recipe twice now, and both times it turned out fine, but I use the weight and not the volume.
Hi Kim, actually the weight for the flour in the recipe is correct. I test all my recipes using 142 grams of flour per cup. Other online sources use different amounts (ranging from 120 grams to 150 grams per cup). It’s important to use the weight measure given in a recipe if it has been tested that way rather than converting it to another online source.
A bit bland and could have benefitted from vanilla. If you like pineapple upside down cake, you will like it, it has a similar flavor profile.
Thanks for the fun recipe! It turned out kinda bland and the crust and topping were soft and kind of soggy. I was hoping for some crispiness! Wonder what I did wrong. The cherry part was delicious though, I haven’t had something with fresh cherries in like ten years, haha. Probably because they’re such a pain to process 🙂
This didn’t quite turn out anything like I hoped, unfortunately. The batter came out a cake like consistency, sort of like cobbler- which would have been ok except the cherries didn’t yield much juice for me, (which is opposite of the problem other people have had.) I didn’t get that cookie like texture at all. It was all a bit bland, unfortunately.
I must say that halved the recipe and put it in an 8X8 pan, so maybe that had something to due with it? There may have been too much egg in my batter, but I was very careful with my measurements. Bummer. ♀️
I still love Melskitchencafe and will continue to religiously use her many recipes that have worked well for me!
What if I had already cooked my berries? Do you know how I could adjust the recipe? Otherwise, L will wait until I have more cherries. This looks like a unique, delicious recipe!
Linda
Did you cook them in sugar with cornstarch? Are they thick, kind of like jam? If so, you should be able to use them in the recipe.
I made these yesterday and I applied some of the helpful tips in the comments section — and they were helpful! Thanks for the great recipe and great advice, everyone!
Here are the helpful tips I used:
• I baked the bottom cookie crust for 10 minutes, THEN put on the cherry topping and bits of cookie topping and baked it the rest of the way.
• I used frozen cherries for mine, so I didn’t drain ALL the water out of the frozen, thawed cherries, because that’s where much of the flavor is. Instead, I used the wisdom of adding 2 tablespoons of cornstarch instead of just one, and that worked great.
They were delicious; everyone loved them! Thank you.
I would love to try this bar with blueberries. What amount of blueberries, sugar, cornstarch and maybe lemon extract would you suggest? Thanks!
I haven’t tried it with blueberries but I’d probably suggest the same amounts of sugar and cornstarch and then subbing in lemon juice for the almond extract (and probably upping it to 1/4 cup lemon juice).
If you thaw and drain the cherries you’re removing all the flavor (learned the hard way). Double the cornstarch instead.
I haven’t tried yet but it sure looks like a good treat, can’t wait!
I am a cherry/chocolate lover and made this today with a hot fudge topping drizzled lightly over the top in place of the glaze. SO good! As always— thank you so much, Mel, for all of your incredible recipes!
Thanks, Lynne!
Haven’t made these yet – on the menu for the Fourth BUT I was reading your dialogue and you mentioned cherry pie is your favorite. Mine too, and nobody gets it. They think I’m nuts that I always request cherry pie for birthdays, holidays, whatever. So thank you for being in that, apparently weird, corner of the world with me!
Haha! Glad we are united in our love of cherry pie!
I love Mel’s site. Whenever I need a recipe, I always go to her site 1st, because it is that reliable.
However, I wasn’t a big fan of this recipe, mostly because what I was expecting and what it actually was were two totally different things. That is my fault. I read the title “cherry pie cookie bars” and I focused on the “cherry pie” part. I was expecting something that tasted very similar to a cherry pie or cherry turnover. Instead, it tasted like cherry filling on top of a shortbread cookie. (Again, I don’t know why I didn’t think this through as I made the recipe; maybe because I thought it would taste more sugar cookie-ish to me and rationalized that even if it did taste like sugar cookies, Mel has my most favorite of all time sugar cookie recipe on her site so it didn’t matter? IDK) The glaze wasn’t really what I was looking for/expecting either (I thought it would be thin, light and lemony, and it was thick and the sugar overpowered the lemon flavor for me), and to me, it didn’t really bring the recipe together. I did use frozen cherries, so maybe that played a role too. My recipe cooked up perfectly (instead of letting the cherries sit in the cornstarch, I bubbled it on the stovetop to make it filling-style). I have no doubt people can/will make this and love this (especially as there are multiple similar recipes by trusted cooks floating around the web), but I just wanted to post so people know what to expect better when they make this recipe. (Dont be like me, expect it to be cherry filling on a thick shortbread crust.)
PS–I still love Mel’s blog and use her as my go-to
PSS–we liked it better with some cream poured on top
Hi Mel,
This recipe didn’t work for me either. I read the other comments and drained the cherries and par baked the crust. Texture wise, it came out perfectly. It looked beautiful. The flavors didn’t work for us. Even my sweet-tooth kids wouldn’t eat a whole piece. We’ve loved all the other recipes we’ve tried.
Next day these bars were mushy…and that is parbaking the crust and draining all the juice. Love the lemon in the glaze…
Sorry these weren’t a hit second day, Lynne!
I baked these according to the recipe, they looked great, but the center was very undercooked. The cherries tasted delicious. The lemon addition was great. Not sure if it was a sea-level issue or if my oven just bakes that cool… should’ve covered the top and added time. Ya live and learn! Still tasty.
Now I’m reading other comments and realizing I’m not the only one with a totally under cooked crust. Makes me feel better; it wasn’t just me!
Sorry the crust didn’t turn out for you Katrina! Mel and I will have to make this again when she gets back in town and troubleshoot the crust issues people are having.
Just made these cherry bars. I parbaked the crust for 13 minutes, then I drained almost all the juice from the cherries. It wasn’t soggy at all. You don’t get a crispy crust, but it isn’t soggy, either. I don’t see how you can put all that juice in on a crust that isn’t parbaked. How did it turn out so well for people who did?? I know I would have had mush. Good recipe for having too many bing cherries. Thanks Mel
Mel –
I tried making these with apricots instead of cherries. I think I should have used at least 2 Tbsp of corn starch as the apricots were still runny in the middle. AND, even though I cooked them for 36 minutes and they were browning nicely on top, they were quite doughy when I cut them tonight. I think I should have added more flour to the dough like my daughter-in-law does.
I will make them again, but I’ll make more changes to try to get them to be more solid.
Made these tonight with fresh cherries. I had the same problem with the bottom crust – totally raw. The top was browned though. I probably should have par baked the bottom crust first, or maybe cooked it lower in the oven instead of in the middle. I’m going to try to “re bake” them by putting them back in the oven at a high temp on a hot pizza stone and see if that will bake the bottom…..
Try as I might, I don’t like cherries BUT my dad does. I owed him some tasty cherry creation for Father’s Day and his birthday, so I made these and pitted every single cherry (something I had never done before and plan not to do again any time soon). I didn’t even give them a try, but everyone who did said they were amazing and tried to convince me to have one little bite. Unfortunately, I can’t stomach cherries. I wish I had such resolve with other desserts…if all tasty things only came in cherry, I’d never have to count a calorie again. I did taste the cookie dough (shhh! don’t tell the food police) and it was delicious. I plan to try this recipe again swapping cherries for black berries.
So good, now a July 4 favorite!
Thanks, Carole!
Hi Mel. I made this over the weekend and it was a huge hit! It was over-the-top delicious! Thanks so much for the wonderful recipes. Keep them coming!
Thank you so much, LeeAnne!
Forgot to add that the lemon zest really made the icing pop. I’ve always been a lemon zest snob thinking it was not really needed and did not add much flavor but no more. My husband said it was the best icing he’d ever tasted. Thanks again Mel!
Hi Mel, I have been following you for quite some time and love your recipes. Made these bars since my son loves cherries and they were delicious. Mine were softer than a traditional bar. I think I ate four in one day. Luckily I am freezing the rest. Thanks for this great recicpe.
Happy to hear you enjoyed them – thanks, Jennifer!
Made this for 4th of July and it was good the first day, but the second day it was total mush. Get ready to eat a lot of dessert in 1 night!!!
I made cherry syrup hated to throw away the pulp. Instead, after draining most of the syrup from the cooked cherries, I added almond extract to the pulp and used that in place of the filling. It’s probably better with her recipe, but my family still loved it!
I made it exactly to recipe – put it in glass Pyrex 9×13 pan, lined with párchement paper, then sprayed with Pam. Baked it for 37 mins at 350 and it turned out PERFECT. I used almost 2 pounds of cherries – buy a cherry pitter, it’s a must for this recipe. Also having an 8 year old boy cut the cherries in half also helps!! Thanks for another AMAZING recipe Mel.
Yay! And yes, 8-year old helpers are the best!
I made these yesterday for the week of the 4th of July and we all really liked them. Here are my comments. I though they were a bit too sweet (therefore the 4 star) but I loved the lemony, almond flavor with the cherries very much. I think that for me, (who doesn’t like it too sweet ever), I would reduce the sugar and only drizzle a very small amount of the glaze on top. It looks so pretty and adds the lemon flavor, so I would not leave it out, just reduce it. Thanks Mel, another keeper.
Thanks for the feedback, Sandy!
I’m out of cornstarch but just pitted all the cherries for this! Agh! Should I use flour or quick cooking tapioca instead?
I know this is late – but I’d probably use the tapioca over the flour.
My 9-year old made these yesterday and they are delicious! I only helped him pit the cherries and pat the crust down in the pan and he took care of the rest! He was so proud of making such a delicious treat! Thanks, Mel!
Impressive, Kelsey!! 🙂 Tell that sweetie I said “way to go!”
My 7 year old made these too and I must not have watched the flour additions because it turned out more like a cobbler. Still delicious!!
Wow! Proud of your 7 year old!
This tasted great but the base was mush. I followed the recipe exactly using fresh cherries. I really was looking for a ‘handable’ bar recipe, not something that although delicious had to be eaten with utensils. I’m open to any suggestions anyone has since it seemed to work better for others.
I wonder if parbaking the crust for 10 minutes or so might help?
I too
was thinking of giving that a try. The flavor was so yummy!
Great recipe! I took it out of the oven 15 minutes ago and the pan is 3/4 gone. A couple of things- not sure if it is the humidity here in the Midwest, but this took 45 minutes to bake and easily could have gone another 5 minutes. I’m also not sure if it will hold up like a ‘cookie bar’-my batch was pretty soft, but when you have people scooping it from the pan, 5 minutes after it comes out of the oven, there’s no way to give it time to ‘set up’. The glaze is a must! This was given 5/5 stars from the 7 people in my kitchen today, ages: 8-87. Love what you do, Mel!
Thanks for the feedback, Leah!
We are leaving for a reunion early Thursday morning and I need a desert for Sat early afternoon. If I make this Wednesday would it still be good by Saturday? I don’t want to take the same old thing this year.
Sorry for the delay in responding! (We’ve been traveling without internet reception) I know it’s too late, but I actually think these would do fine made a couple days ahead of time. The bottom crust might be a little soft, but I froze some of these before I left and my brother-in-law said they were great out of the freezer (he snitched some while we’ve been gone). 🙂
My kids and I made this today! It was SO yummy! The ice cream brought it over the top!
So happy to hear that! Thanks for letting me know!
A double batch works great in an oversized sheet pan. Mine needed the full 35 min.
Thanks, Teri! That’s great to know!
Terri an oversized 1/2 sheet pan or 18×26 full sheet pan?
Teri…. sorry I didn’t mean to spell your name wrong. My bad! I would really love to double this recipe for July 4th and wanted to make sure that my oversized 1/2 sheet pan is large enough to double this. Thank you for any help you can give me!
My pan is about 14×20. Not sure the technical name for that size, I guess!
Thank you!!
Hi Mel! Any advice for how to quickly pit all the cherries?
It’s easier if cherries are warmed a bit first. I microwaved a cup or two at a time for a minute. I also saw an idea for using a decorater tip. Just set the tip on the counter and press cherry over it.
You can purchase an inexpensive hand held cherry pitter (sometimes called a stoner) from Amazon. That’s the fastest way I know to pit cherries
This recipe looks heavenly!! It’s in my oven right now. I can’t wait to try it. But I had a thought, do you think this would work with peaches? I have some sitting on my counter right now that I was going to make hand pies with, but this seems so much easier.
I think this would be AMAZING with peaches. If you try it, let me know!
I’m super excited! My trees produced about 200 lbs of cherries this year and if I’m going to pit one more cherry it needs to be going in a cookie
How would I adjust this for pie/sour cherries?
I’m not sure, Bonnie – maybe increasing the sugar would do the trick?
I have pie cherries and didn’t change a thing. They are incredible bars
Thanks for the report back!
I love cherry pie and these bars will b perfect for dessert. Could I use canned sweet cherries instead of fresh or frozen?
I think so, Charlotte – I’d probably make sure the cherries are well drained before using.
Mel, this recipe sounds so much like a dessert my mom used to make back in the late 1960s / early 1970s when it was her turn to host her friends for their “card club”. Hers also had a soft cookie-like crust that was best patted into the pan, but she made it with a combination of one can of cherry pie filling and one can of pineapple pie filling mixed together which may sound odd, but the two fillings taste really good together! I’m looking forward to making your recipe as soon as I get back to Costco — the woman behind me in line today had a huge container of fresh, sweet cherries, and now I wish I’d gotten out of line and picked some up for us.
Sounds like a yummy combo, Bernadette!
My mom made a “dump cake” with those flavors. Mix cherry pie filling and crushed pineapple. Cover with a box of yellow cake mix. Drizzle with 1 stick melted butter and bake. Amazing!!
Hi- I bought way too many sour cherries. Do you think if I upped the sugar a little- they would work in this recipe?
I’m curious to hear as well. Lot’s of sour cherries at the orchard down the street from me.
Hey Stephanie and Gretchen – I definitely think it’s worth a try if the sugar is increased!
We love cherries at our house and are headed to the orchard this weekend. This recipe post is perfect timing. 🙂
I’ve had a question now for a while and this post is a good example. When can buttermilk be used instead of regular milk? I love the flavor buttermilk gives to things but don’t know if/when it can be substituted.
Thanks Mel!
Hi Kim – that’s a great question. For small amounts (I’d say less than 1/4 cup), it can be subbed in any time. For larger amounts of milk/buttermilk I usually take a look at the recipe and see what the leavening agents are (baking powder and baking soda) to make sure there is baking soda in the recipe. Does that help at all?
It does – thanks Mel. Just a clarifying statement and question because my curiosity is piqued: for recipes that call for more than a 1/4 cup a milk and does not call for baking soda in the recipe, regular milk should be used and not buttermilk. Right? Does the buttermilk interact differently with baking soda vs baking powder?
Yes, buttermilk reacts (in a good way) with baking soda. That’s not to say you can’t use buttermilk in recipes with only baking powder, but if the amount of buttermilk is a lot (more than 1/4 cup, in my experience), the recipe may not turn out if the only leavened is baking powder. In those recipes…say, a recipe that calls for 1 cup milk and 1 teaspoon baking powder and I want to sub buttermilk for the milk…I’ll add in 1/4 teaspoon baking soda if I sub the milk for buttermilk. It usually works pretty well, but in order to prevent people being angry with me if recipes turn out wonky , keep in mind that messing with tested recipes may not produce the same results. But what fun is it to never experiment, right??
Earlier today I was staring at the bag of cherries sitting on our counter and wondering how they’d all get eaten. Problem solved! I just finished pitting the cherries. My fingers are now burgundy, but I can’t wait to make these!
Yay! I hope you love the bars!