These delicious Cherry Crumb Bars are the perfect way to celebrate cherry season! These bars are incredibly easy to make using fresh, sweet cherries and an easy to make crumb topping that doubles as the base layer too.
It’s cherry season and what better way to celebrate the season than with a delicious dessert that features these beauties! I have probably eaten my weight in cherries already this season but as much as I love these fruit fresh, I just had to whip up them up into these delicious Cherry Crumb Bars!
If you love cherry pie or cherry crumbles, then this dessert is for you. It features sweet cherries because they are my favourite. You can use tart cherries if you like but I honestly think sweet is the way to go. The crumb topping also serves as the base for these bars too so they are very easy to make! They also don’t require pre-cooking the filling so hooray for a quick and easy dessert!
How to make Cherry Crumb Bars
This recipe makes 9 bars in a 9×9 baking dish. Of course you can always cut the bars smaller for a bite size dessert, but when they’re this yummy, you won’t want to!
For this recipe, you will need:
For the crust:
3/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
For the filling:
2 cups sweet cherries, pitted and sliced into quarters
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350F and line a 9×9 inch pan with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, mix together the melted butter and sugar. Add the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, vanilla and salt and stir together until the mixture is crumbly.
Spread half of the mixture onto the bottom of the baking pan and press down to form the crust.
In a bowl, mix all of the filling ingredients together. Sprinkle the filling over the crust. Sprinkle the remaining crumble mixture over top of the filling.
Bake the bars for 30 minutes or until the crust turns a nice golden brown. Let cool before slicing.
Tips for making the best Cherry Crumb Bars
This recipe is pretty easy and staight forward but there are some things I find make these bars perfect every time.
- Use parchment paper in your baking dish so that the bars can easily be removed. You can slice them directly in the pan if you like or, if you are removing them before slicing, make sure that you allow enough parchment paper to overhang on the sides of the pan so you can easily lift them out.
- Let the bars completely cool before slicing. I know its tempting to dig right in, but if you don’t want your bars to crumble to pieces, let them cool before you slice.
- Slice your cherries into quarters. As tempting as it is to just halve them, I find slicing them in quarters makes them super soft and gooey in the center, which is what you want!
Can you freeze Cherry Crumb Bars?
You sure can! These bars can be stored in the freezer in a freezer safe container. Just make sure to cool them completely, then place parchment between the bars so they do not stick together. When you are ready to enjoy, you can let them thaw and come to room temperature. Pop them in the oven for a bit to warm them if you like.
How to serve these bars
These bars are the perfect dessert on their own. They truly do not need anything more but if you like, you can serve these up with a scoop of ice cream or a dollop of whip cream. Another option is to drizzle them with some icing (mixing powdered sugar with a bit of milk and then drizzle over top of them).
I hope you enjoy these delicious Cherry Crumb Bars as much as my family does!
-Cathy
You may also like:
Peach Crumble Bars
Mini Blueberry Galettes
Cherry Crumb Bars
Ingredients
For the crust:
- 3/4 cup butter melted
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
For the filling:
- 2 cups sweet cherries pitted and sliced into quarters
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F and line a 9×9 inch pan with parchment paper (Let the parchment overhang up the sides of the pan so you can easily lift it out of the pan when they’re done cooling).
- In a large bowl, mix together the melted butter and sugar. Add the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, vanilla and salt and stir together until the mixture is crumbly.
- Spread half of the mixture onto the bottom of the baking pan and press down to form the crust.
- In a bowl, mix all of the filling ingredients together. Sprinkle the filling over the crust. Sprinkle the remaining crumble mixture over top of the filling.
- Bake the bars for 30 minutes or until the crust turns a nice golden brown. Let cool before slicing.
Note: Metric ingredient measurements are provided as a courtesy using a third-party calculator and are rounded to the nearest unit. The recipes provided on this site have not been tested with metric measurements and their accuracy cannot be verified.
Nutrition
The nutritional information provided is based on third-party calculations and is an estimate only. Accurate nutritional facts will vary based on the particular brands used, portion sizes, measurement accuracy and more.
They look delicious! Can I use frozen cherries?
Thank you! I haven’t tried these with frozen cherries but I imagine it would work out!