If you love cherry pie, but making pie crust from scratch intimidates you, this crumb-topped cherry pie bar recipe is the answer. You’ll still enjoy a jammy cherry filling, but with the welcome ease of making a single “dough” that becomes both crust and topping—no finicky pie crust chilling, rolling, or shaping. Dessert is served! It’s why I’ve created bar versions of some of the most popular pies on my site, such as pumpkin pie bars, salted caramel apple pie bars, and blueberry pie bars.
Why You’ll Love Cherry Pie Bars
Easier than pie—crust & topping made from the same 1-bowl mixture Juicy, jammy cherry pie filling, made from scratch Made with frozen sour cherries, available year round! Quicker than many fruit fillings—no pitting, peeling, or chopping the fruit Another egg-free baking recipe Sweet almond-flavored icing Easy to transport, slice, serve, and freeze!
While my classic cherry pie recipe uses fresh sweet cherries, these cherry pie bars use frozen sour cherries, so you don’t have to limit this recipe to when cherries are in season. But, if you have fresh, you can absolutely use them here! Here’s everything you need:
Crust & Topping Made From Same Mixture
If you were to buy canned cherry pie filling, that’s made with sour cherries! So the sour cherry filling going into these pie bars tastes like THE quintessential cherry pie filling. Think: the storybook hometown diner cherry pie of your dreams. 🙂
All-Purpose Flour: Flour is the base of the crust/crumble. Oats: Feel free to use either whole rolled oats or quick oats here. Reserve 2 Tablespoons of oats to add to the crumble topping before sprinkling it on top of the cherry pie filling. Brown Sugar: I love using brown sugar in a dough/crumble like this, because of the moisture and flavor it provides. Baking Powder: Baking powder keeps the crust/crumble on the lighter side. Without it, the texture would be a little too hard and dense. Lemon Zest & Salt: Small amounts but definitely necessary for flavorful bars. The lemon zest brightens up the zingy sour cherry flavor even more, and salt enhances everything. Melted Butter: Using melted butter makes this a stir-by-hand mixture (just like these chewy chocolate chip cookies!). It binds the ingredients together and provides flavor.
Bake the crust for 10 minutes before you top it with the filling. Like with apples, varieties of cherries range in flavor, texture, and size. Some varieties are known as “sweet, snacking cherries,” and others are known as “sour” or “tart” cherries. While the sweeter, firmer varieties are ideal for eating all by themselves, the smaller sour/tart varieties are excellent for baking.
If the word “sour” puts you off, think about all the delicious sour flavors we enjoy in baked goods, like cranberries, lemon, and rhubarb. A little added sugar balances the sour with sweet, and the result is mouth-watering, not mouth-puckering.
Sour cherries are lower in sugar than sweet cherries but higher in acidity, which gives them a vivid flavor, and cooking them concentrates the sugars so they taste sweeter.
Cook the Sour Cherry Pie Filling on the Stove
Let me walk you through this so you understand the cooking step before you start. You need 3 and 1/2 cups (about 525g) of fresh or frozen sour cherries. No need to thaw. Combine them in a saucepan with sugar and lemon juice. Cook until the cherries begin to release their juices, then pour some of that warm cherry liquid into a small bowl of cornstarch. Use a fork to dissolve the cornstarch: Why are we doing this? Like with this blueberry sauce and strawberry dessert sauce, and you need to make a cornstarch slurry mixture, because adding powdery cornstarch to the fruit leaves you with chalky chunks of undissolved cornstarch. And, here, you don’t want to add more liquid to the cherry filling, so that’s why we’re literally using liquid from the cooking cherries. We use this trick to thicken the filling in triple berry pie, too. Nice and thick like the canned stuff, but completely homemade: Spread the warm filling over the pre-baked crust. Stir an additional 2 Tablespoons of oats into the remaining crumble mixture, to give it a little extra volume, then sprinkle it over the filling before baking. Cool baked crumb-topped cherry pie bars completely, just like you would let a cherry pie cool completely. If you cut the bars into squares while they are still warm, they’ll fall apart.
Optional Icing
Flavors of almond & cherry pair so well, just like in these cherry almond linzer cookies and cherry cobbler. If you’d like to top with icing, whisk together the almond icing ingredients in the recipe card below, or you could make this vanilla icing instead. Each one is made from only 3 ingredients and comes together in a flash. PIE BAR PERFECTION, and totally from scratch. This recipe is part of Sally’s Pie Week, an annual tradition where I share a handful of new recipes that fit into the pie/crisp/tart category. Join the community below!
