Glazed Cherry Pie Bars

Glazed Cherry Pie Bars — 🍒🥧❤️ Just like your favorite cherry pie but way easier! A no-roll crust with juicy cherries and topped with a sweet glaze! Perfect for parties, events, and holidays!

Easy Cherry Pie Filling Dessert 

My grandma used to make the best homemade cherry pie. Nothing could ever come close to her pie. Tender, buttery, and perfectly sweet.

However, I’m not a pie-maker and prefer the ease of dessert bars like my blueberry pie bars and these cherry pie bars. They’re perfect for all of us non-pie-makers!

There’s a tender, soft, buttery shortbread crust topped with cherry pie filling before being baked and glazed. There’s almond extract in both the bars and the glaze, which adds the most heavenly flavor. The cherry and almond extract combination is absolutely perfect and reminds me of my favorite Cherry Bread with Cherry-Almond Glaze.

It’s a great recipe for parties, events, and holiday celebrations because the recipe makes a large amount. They’d be great for a Valentine’s Day, Christmas, or Fourth of July party with the red and white colors popping through.

What’s in Cherry Pie Bars? 

To make the cherry almond bars, you’ll need: 

• Unsalted butter
• Granulated sugar
• Salt
• Large Eggs – Let the eggs come to room temperature for easy mixing
• Vanilla extract
• Almond extract – If you love almond extract, up the amount in the dough to 1/2 teaspoon. I don’t recommend adding any more than that though, because almond extract is potent
• All-purpose flour
• Canned cherry pie filling – If you have the time, you can use homemade cherry pie filling. I’ve only made this recipe as written, but I bet you could use another fruit pie filling such as apple or berry if preferred
• Confectioners’ sugar (powdered sugar)
• Milk

How to Make This Cherry Pie Bars Recipe

This is hands down one of my favorite recipes using cherry pie filling! Faster than making a homemade pie, the steps are simple and virtually failproof.

Here’s an overview of the process:

1. Use a hand mixer or stand mixer to beat the butter, sugar, and salt in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy, scraping the sides as needed. Add the eggs one at a time, beating between each mixture.
2. Add the extracts, and beat on medium-high speed. Then, gradually add the flour, and beat on medium-low speed.
3. Turn about 75% of the dough onto a prepared pan, spreading it out with a spatula. Note that the dough will be very sticky and tacky. It’s hard to smooth out to form the crust, but just be patient and take your time. Add the cherry filling, spreading it evenly, leaving a 1/4 inch bare margin from the edges of the baking pan. Use a 2-tablespoon cookie scoop to drop the remaining batter over the pie filling.
4. Bake until the dough is very lightly golden pan, and allow the bars to cool completely on a wire rack.
5. In the meantime, whisk the glaze in a small bowl until smooth, and drizzle it over the cherry pie bars. Serve the bars on their own or with vanilla ice cream!

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5 from 2 votes

Glazed Cherry Pie Bars

By Averie Sunshine

🍒🥧❤️ Just like your favorite cherry pie but way easier! A no-roll crust with juicy cherries and topped with a sweet glaze! Perfect for parties, events, and holidays!

Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 35 minutes minutes

Additional Time: 45 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Servings: 15 servings

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Equipment

• 1 (15x10x1-inch) Jelly Roll Pan
• 1 Stand Mixer Fitted with a Paddle Attachment
• 1 Wire Rack
• 1 Medium Bowl

Ingredients 

Bars

• ▢ 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• ▢ 2 cups granulated sugar
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
• ▢ 4 large eggs
• ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon almond extract, or 1/2 teaspoon if you love almond extract
• ▢ 3 cups all-purpose flour
• ▢ two 21-ounce cans cherry pie filling

Glaze

• ▢ 1 ¼ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted if yours is particularly lumpy
• ▢ ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ ½ teaspoon almond extract
• ▢ 2 to 3 tablespoons milk, as necessary for consistency

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Instructions 

Bars:

• Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 15x10x1-inch jelly roll pan with cooking spray; set aside. Optionally, line the pan with a sheet of foil and spray with cooking spray. The advantage is you can lift the bars out by the foil and cut them more neatly on a cutting board.
• To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or large bowl and handheld electric mixer), add the butter, sugar, salt, and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
• Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
• Add the extracts and beat on medium-high speed to incorporate, about 30 seconds.
• Gradually add the flour and beat on medium-low speed to incorporate, about 1 minute.
• Turn about 75% of the dough out into a prepared pan and spread with a spatula to create a smooth, even, flat layer. It’s sticky, tacky, and requires some patience, but just keep spreading and finessing it into the corners.
• Add the pie filling and spread to evenly distribute leaving a 1/4-inch bare margin from edges of pan. It spreads while baking and trying to prevent filling from sticking to sides of pan is advised so it doesn’t burn.
• Drop remaining dough by 2-teaspoonfuls over pie filling. It’s very sticky and I find it easiest to use a 2-tablespoon cookie scoop  filled about halfway. The dough will spread together somewhat as the bars bake.
• Bake for 35 minutes, or until dough on top and around the edges is very lightly golden brown.
• Allow bars to cool completely in pan on a wire rack.

Glaze:

• To a medium bowl, add the confectioners’ sugar, extracts, and enough milk to reach desired consistency.
• Evenly drizzle glaze over the bars and serve immediately.

Notes

Storage: Bars will keep airtight at room temp for up to 5 days, noting crust will soften as time passes. I like the bars at room temp but my family enjoys them chilled. They will keep in the fridge airtight for up to 1 week or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Adapted from Taste of Home.

Nutrition

Serving: 1serving, Calories: 528kcal, Carbohydrates: 78g, Protein: 11g, Fat: 19g, Saturated Fat: 10g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g, Monounsaturated Fat: 6g, Trans Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 274mg, Sodium: 187mg, Potassium: 208mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 37g, Vitamin A: 894IU, Vitamin C: 3mg, Calcium: 55mg, Iron: 3mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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More Easy Cherry Desserts:

ALL OF MY CHERRY RECIPES! 

Triple Chocolate Cherry Cake — Loaded with juicy cherries and topped with an easy homemade chocolate frosting. This is yet another cherry pie filling dessert, but this cake tastes completely homemade! 

Mini Cherry Oreo Cheesecakes – EASY mini cheesecakes loaded with cherries and an Oreo cookie crust! The hit of your Valentine’s Day party! Another of my favorite recipes using cherry pie filling! 

Sweet Soft Cherry Bread with Cherry-Almond Glaze – An easy quickbread that’s perfect for Valentine’s Day, Easter, or Mother’s Day! Because you can never have too much pink!

Glazed Cherry Bonbon Cookies — Soft, buttery, pink cookies with the surprise of a juicy, sweet maraschino cherry in the middle that also helps keep the cookies moist! 

Maraschino Cherry White Chocolate Cookies –  Super soft buttery cookies stuffed with white chocolate and cherries! Perfect for Valentine’s Day!

Chocolate Chip and Cherry Blondies – Fruit for dessert takes on new meaning with these easy bars!

Cherry Cream Pie – An old-fashioned pie with homemade scratch crust topped with NO-BAKE layers of sweetened cream cheese along with juicy cherry pie filling! If you like cherry pie, you’re going to LOVE this amped-up version!