Cherry Almond Cookie Bars

Cherry almond cookie bars have a super soft, buttery cookie dough crust and flavourful cherry almond filling, finished with a sweet drizzle of vanilla glaze. Amazing and so easy to make!

You can make your own cherry filling or simply pick up a can of cherry pie filling from the supermarket. And if you are not keen on cherries, you can also try apple, blueberry or peach pie filling instead! Check out my variations section for more ideas.

Cherries are one of my most favourite fruits and luckily, we are lucky to have an abundance in the summer. Great for making black forest desserts, a cold fruit soup, sauces to go with meats or simply eaten fresh from the tree. I love ’em all.

These are not to be confused with my strawberry-shortcake-bars, which have a buttery shortbread topped with fresh strawberries and a crumbly topping. while these are fantastic, cherry cookie bars are like biting into a cherry pie and cookie at the same time.

If you like the sound of this recipe, check out some these fruity bar recipes for more inspiration: blueberry cheesecake bars or raspberry zserbó.

If you decide to give this recipe a try, let me know! Leave a comment below and rate it – it’s really helpful to me and other readers knowing what you think! And don’t forget to take a picture and tag me @thegourmetlarder or hashtag it #thegourmetlarder on Instagram or Facebook. I love seeing what you’ve been baking! 🙂

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INGREDIENTS

For this recipe all you need are these ingredients:

• Cherry pie filling – Try my homemade pie filling recipe for great results or you can buy a tin from the supermarket.

• Almond extract – cherries and almonds go so well together and in this dessert its no different.

– Pure almond extract recommendation: Almond extract

• Butter – adds structure and flavour. I use salted butter for most of my baking as it intensifies the flavours, but feel free to use unsalted if you prefer. Make sure it’s at room temperature before using.

• Caster sugar – adds structure, sweetness to the cookie base.

• Soft light brown sugar – creates that extra crispiness in the cookie base.

• Egg – helps to bind the ingredients together and add flavour.

• Plain (all-purpose) flour – builds structure.

• Baking powder – is a chemical leavening which increases the volume of the ingredients, creating a nice light texture.

• Icing sugar (powdered sugar) – is used to create the glaze.

• Milk or cream – Is used to get the glaze to the right consistency. I prefer cream to get a really smooth delicious taste.

• Pure vanilla extract or paste – adds flavour and enhances the other ingredient flavours in the recipe.

– Vanilla recommendations: pure vanilla extract or vanilla paste or vanilla pods.

• Flaked or sliced almonds – add texture and flavour.

TIP: I highly recommend adding a good pinch of salt to your desserts. Salt helps balance out the sweetness and richness. It also elevates the other ingredients, bring out the best characteristics of any recipe. In a seemingly absurd or contradictory way, salt intensifies the mouths ability to taste sweetness. It is the sodium that sends signals to move glucose into the sweet taste receptor cells in our tongue. The result is that salt not only alerts our ‘salt sensitivity’, but also our ‘sweet sensitive’ taste buds. I recommend Maldon Sea salt flakes or Cornish sea salt.

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SUBSTITUTIONS

While I am making recommendations for alternative ingredients, I haven’t necessarily tried them. If you try making any adaptions, I would love to know how you get on and share it with the other readers.

VEGAN OPTIONS

• Butter: I recommend Naturli vegan block or Flora plant-based block butter alternative.

• Egg-free: You could try omitting the egg as I have made cookies before with out the egg and they turn out fine, alternatively Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free egg replacer is a vegan baking alternative you can feel good about using. It’s so easy to use as well: just simply add water to the egg replacer in varying amounts depending on If you’re replacing a whole egg, egg yolk, or egg white.

GLUTEN-FREE OPTION

• Flour: replace the gluten flour with a 1:1 alternative gluten free flour, such as Doves Farm Free plain gluten free flour. If possible, choose a flour which contains xanthan gum or alternatively, add 1 tsp to your batter for stability. You can also try Doves Farm gluten free self-raising flour.

• Ground almonds: the cookie base will also work using a combination of gluten-free flour and 100g of ground almonds. it will add both flavour and a lighter structure.

SUGAR-FREE AND LOW-CALORIE OPTIONS

Replacing the sugar with these alternatives will certainly result in a different cookie base both in taste and texture. I would recommend a powered sugar over honey, due to the volume of sugar used and the amount of sweetness required.

• Sugar-free or calorie reduced options: try alternatives such as coconut sugar, honey, natural erythritol, xylitol, stevia or fructooligosaccharide powder instead. There are also sweetener mixes available, that are 70% calorie reduced and low in carb.

• Brown sugar suggestions: Pure Via Baker’s soft brown sugar or Sukrin Gold’s natural brown sugar alternative.

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WHAT VARIATIONS CAN I MAKE?

This is where the fun begins.

• Fruits: try apple, blueberry or peach pie filling instead! or make your own with rhubarb and pear version. Plus you can use compotes or jams such as raspberry, fig or strawberry.

• Chocolates: if you fancy a little chocolate, add some chocolate chips to the bottom quantity of cookie dough prior to pushing it into the base of the pan.

• Nuts: Replace the slithered almonds with other alternative nuts, such as pecans, walnuts or hazelnuts.

• Spices – If you are using different fruits you can try adding spices that compliment them such as cinnamon, cloves or nutmeg.

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NUTRITION

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STORAGE AND FREEZING

These cooled cherry almond cookie bars are best eaten on the day of baking, but they can be kept in an airtight container for 3-5 days at room temperature.

Freezing: The bars can be frozen up to a month, however they will lose their crispiness. To defrost simply leave on the kitchen worktop for half an hour and serve at room temperature.

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TOOLS YOU’LL NEED

Here is some kitchen equipment that I use and recommend for this recipe.

• Earthenware Mixing Bowl Mason Cash, Cream 29 cm Chip Resistant.

I like the sturdiness of this bowl and its 4 litre capacity means I can use it for mixing just about everything in the kitchen. It is also microwave, freezer and dishwasher safe.

• Mixing Bowls Set of 5, Stainless Steel Nesting Bowls with Airtight Lids, 3 Grater Attachments, Size 5, 3, 2, 1.5, 0.63 QT

These different size mixing bowls are really useful depending on the amount of food you are preparing. They also have airtight lids that fit snugly to seal and keep food fresh, great for using as dry storage bowls with lids. The plastic lid of the largest bowl has a removable centre, where one of 3 graters can be used for grating cheese or vegetables.

• 3 Plastic Mixing Bowls, Non-Slip Base, Soft Grip Handle, Microwave and Dishwasher Safe, Compact, Stackable, Ideal for baking and cooking, off-white, 1.5 Litre, 2 Litre, 2.5 Litre.

I do own a plastic mixing bowl but I am personally not a big fan of them. These 3 bowls are on the smaller size but good for the odd cake making.

• Loose Base Square Cake Tin, Professional Gauge Carbon Steel with Eclipse Non-Stick Coating, 20 cm x 20 cm / 8″ x 8″ Cake Pan; Cake Pan, Ideal for bakes and celebration cakes

A great size and good quality non-stick pan for all your traybakes, bars etc…

• Breville Classic Combo Stand and Hand Mixer | 3.7 Litre Stainless Steel Bowl | Swivel Control, Whisk, Dough Hooks and Beaters

I like this model of electric hand mixer because it comes with a large stand, meaning you don’t have to always hold it.

Please check out my Shop for a curated collection of some of my favourite baking equipment. The Gourmet Larder is an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

TIP: I highly recommend using metric measurements and a digital kitchen scale, rather than cup measurements. If you have ever ended up with dry, dense or crumbly baked goods, it might be because of inaccurate volume measurements, not all measuring cups are made equally. All my recipes on this blog are carefully developed so that you can easily recreate them in your own kitchen with success, using metric measurements. It is also a lot easier, less messy and you will get far better, consistent results. 🙂
If you are interested in understanding conversions, here you will find the best conversion chart.

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RECIPE TIPS

Use room temperature ingredients – both the butter and egg should be at room temperature. Cold butter will not cream together properly with the sugars and when combined with the egg will not emulsify correctly, causing the finished baked product to be dense and heavy.

Using almond extract – I am not a great advocate of almond extract. I always leave it out of most recipes that call for it because it so easily overpowers everything else. I make an exception in this recipe because those couple of drops make the cherries come to life and create a balance in flavour through out the bars.

Lining your pan – I highly recommend lining your pan with baking parchment paper. If you line it so that it overhangs by 2-3 cm on each side it will allow you to remove the whole thing very easily. making cutting much simpler.