It’s been a minute since I’ve made anything with cherries – fresh cherries that is, not that faux cherry chip goodness. I normally just like to eat baskets of them during the short stone fruit season, but Tracy Shutterbean posted these Cherry Pie Crumble Bars on her Instagram and I though I’d given them a try.

This is a super simple recipe that reminded me of these Blueberry Crumb Squares from last summer, but makes a smaller 8×8″ pan. They were good, don’t get me wrong, but they reminded me why I haven’t baked anything with fresh cherries since 2012. The flavour is so mild that they get a bit lost in there. I’m still posting these though, because they would be a quick go-to recipe for a summer BBQ, and I think you could easily swap in blueberries, raspberries or any other summer fruit in season.

Cherry Pie Crumble Bars

Source: Shutterbean

Ingredients

Crust & Crumble

• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt

Filling

• 3 cups cherries, pitted and quartered
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp flour
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp salt

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375° and line a 8×8″ square baking pan with parchment paper or foil.
2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the flour and salt and mix until combined. The dough will be in small crumbles. Press 2 1/2 cups of this mixture into the bottom of the pan and set the rest aside.
3. For the filling, toss the cherries, sugar, flour, lemon juice and salt together. Pour over the crust.
4. Crumble the remaining flour mixture overtop (squeeze handfuls of it to get big clumps, and then sprinkle over the cherries).
5. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the crumbles are golden brown and the filling is bubbling.