I love a good pie, and these bar cookies are almost like a handheld pie, but with much less work. They are perfect holiday cookies to serve on a platter with molasses cookies, thumbprint cookies and snowball cookies.
Cherry Bars Ingredients
To make cherry bars with vanilla glaze you will need butter, sugar, salt, eggs, flour, vanilla extract, almond extract and cherry pie filling. For the glaze you will want to have powdered sugar, vanilla extract, almond extract and milk. This recipe is one of my favorite holiday desserts. If you want more Christmas dessert recipes check out my eggnog cake, peppermint bark, cake truffles, rum balls and my favorite Christmas cookie recipes.
How Do You Make Cherry Bars?
This cherry bars recipe starts with a making a cookie dough by beating together butter, sugar and salt in a stand mixer or with an electric mixer. Add the eggs and mix them together. Slowly add in flour, vanilla extract and almond extract at low speed until combined. Spread some of the dough on the bottom of a jelly roll pan. Spread two cans of cherry pie filling over the top of the dough. Dollops of dough go on top. Then the whole pan goes into the oven to bake until golden brown. After your bars have cooled, make a glaze by whisking together powdered sugar, almond extract, vanilla extract and milk. Drizzle the glaze over the tp. Cut your pan of cookies into squares and you’re ready to serve!
Tips For The Perfect Cherry Bars
This cherry bars recipe calls for a 15″ x 10″ pan which is a somewhat unusual size. You can make the bars in a 9″ x 13″ pan instead. The bars will be thicker and therefore take longer to cook. You can also make your own homemade cherry pie filling for an extra special treat. This recipe calls for basic ingredients that you most likely already have in the house with the exception of one: almond extract. The almond extract really makes these bars special, so I urge you to make a special trip to the store to grab some for this recipe. You won’t regret it.
Flavor Variations
This recipe makes fantastic cherry bars; however, you can modify the recipe to suit your own tastes.
Filling: You can use different fillings to make different flavor bars like my apple pie filling or even blueberry or peach pie filling. Ice Cream: Cherry pie bars are perfect served as is, but a scoop of vanilla ice cream never hurts. Chocolate: For chocolate and cherry bars, mix 1 cup of chocolate chips into the dough. Crumble Topping: Add a crumble topping by mixing together in a small bowl with two forks 1/3 cup of granulated sugar, 1/4 cup of all purpose flour, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/4 cup cold butter cut into small pieces. Sprinkle the crumble on top and bake the bars. Orange Glaze: For an orange glaze omit the almond extract and the milk and add 1 1/2 tablespoons of orange juice.
Cherry bars make a great potluck offering. They are perfect for a holiday cookie tray, or are great for when you need dessert to feed a lot of people. Everyone that has tried these bars has asked me for the recipe, they’re really that good! Think cherry pie meets almond sugar cookie. Cherry bars always get rave reviews and are super festive for a holiday gathering.
