I’ve never actually made a cherry pie and didn’t have time this week to make a full pie crust, so I decided to try these Cherry Pie Bars instead!

The recipe itself is pretty easy. You pit a bunch of cherries and then mix them in a bowl with lemon juice, sugar, and cornstarch. While that IS easy, it is not a quick process. I love cherries, but I always remember what a pain it is to pit cherries anytime I’m baking with fresh cherries. I ended up not having enough fresh cherries so I used about a 1/2 pound of frozen cherries and just hoped that it would be ok.

The dough is very simple and I love ones that you can just throw into a food processor and make. It was quite dry though and in hindsight, I’m wondering if I should have thrown a little water in. It was fine pressing down into the bottom of the dish, but I struggled to get nice discs to put on top of the cherries.

As suspected, it didn’t look pretty but it was very very good! I loved the almond crust and it paired really well with the cherry layer. It wasn’t too sweet and was a nice summery treat so well worth the effort of pitting!

Recipe Used: The Kitchn