CHERRY PIE SWITCH UP!
I’ve been after something sweet to eat lately and these Coconut Cherry Pie Bars hit the spot.
My wife and I love Cherries and after a recent trip to her parents house we left with a huge shopping bag full of them.
My father-in-law has many cherry trees on his property and asked us to please take some as they can’t eat them all.
They hate to see the fruits fall to the ground and waste so they try to give them to friends and family to eat up.
Last year I made Cherry Ricotta Turnovers with homemade Marshmallow cream with cherries from their property and this year I’m making Coconut Cherry Pie Bars.
I’m a huge fan of bar recipes because you can easily eat them on the run and they are the perfect snack size treats for break time or dessert. If you are wondering where the ooey gooey part of the Coconut Cherry Pie Bars is coming from it’s the condensed milk.
Anytime you used condensed milk it adds depth and creaminess to any recipe and I find it keeps the bars moist so I chose to add a layer in this recipe.
If I was to simply make a Cherry Pie Bar it would be great but there is no gooey factor to cherry pie filling so I wanted to take the traditional pie to a new level.
Once the shortbread pie crust is on the bottom add your cherry pie filling and then a can of condensed milk, coconut and the rest of the shortbread pie crust topping.
I chose a shortbread approach instead of a simple pie crust and homemade cherry pie topping because I like a thicker crust and it must be buttery.
That seems easy enough doesn’t it?
The time-consuming part of this recipe apart from baking it is making the homemade cherry pie filling (see recipe link in this post)which must have tonnes of flavour to battle the shortbread crust for this recipe.
To be honest though from start to finish it took me about 30 mins or so. If you have a cherry pitter handy it will go even faster. Pitting cherries is the pits!! If you don’t have time to make a cherry pie filling recipe you can easily buy it in a can in most grocery stores.
Considering the cost of pre-packaged granola bars it’s easier and budget-friendly to make these Coconut Cherry Pie Bars for everyone to enjoy. I don’t claim to make the best cherry pie but I might just take home the award for these Cherry Pie Bars.
What is your favourite kind of fruit pie? You know you could substitute the fruit filling in this recipe any time depending on what your family enjoys.
HOW TO MAKE COCONUT CHERRY PIE BARS
If you don’t want to make Mr. CBB’s Homemade Cherry Pie Filling for this recipe you can simply buy canned cherry pie filling at your local grocery store for about $2.99 a can.
Some homeowners who have cherry trees on their property sometimes need help picking and eating the cherries so it’s always nice to see if they could use some help picking them and enjoying them for free. We do this with our crab apple tree in the summer.
Come August the tree is packed full and we find people who might be interested in taking the apples home to make a new dessert.
- Base and Topping
- 3-3/4 cups of white flour
- 1-1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon of baking soda
- 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon Almond extract (or you can add this to the homemade cherry pie filling)
- 1-1/2 cups of granulated sugar
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 1-1/2 cups of cold cubed unsalted butter
- 3 large egg yolks (set whites aside)
- Cherry pie Filling
- 4 cups (see cherry pie filling recipe link in this blog post above)
- 1 can condensed milk
- 1 small bag sweetened coconut (about 2 cups or enough to cover a layer)
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
- Take a 9x13 cake pan and butter the pan before adding your parchment paper to help it stick to the pan. It's always a pain trying to get it to stay where it needs to stay. I use enough parchment paper so I can lift the entire tray of bars out at once.
- You may even want to spray the parchment paper like I did with a non-cooking spray. Make sure you have overhang to do this on each side of the pan.
- In a bowl add all of your dry ingredients and mix with a fork
- Add in the cold butter and cut with a pastry cutter
- Add in your wet ingredients yolks and extracts and mix
- Once the dough looks like it has pea sized bits you know you are done
- Set aside about 2.5 cups of the base and then press the rest into your baking sheet making sure not to miss any corners.
- Add the cherry pie filling as your first layer
- On top of the pie filling add your condensed milk then coconut layer
- Before the bars go in the oven take the crumble that was set aside and sprinkle it on top of the bars. Make sure it is evenly distributed.
- Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for about 1 hour or until golden brown. If your oven is like mine I add a cover to prevent heavy browning or burning the last 15-20 mins so keep a watchful eye. I just put an empty baking sheet on top to cover.
- Let cool then remove the parchment paper onto a cutting board. Cutting into equal sized squares then freeze them for anytime snacks.
- Freeze up to 3 months.
- Oh, the extra egg whites make a great omelet.
My wife and I both like our Coconut Cherry Pie Bars frozen and topped with coconut Greek Yogurt. If you don’t fancy yogurt you can let the bars thaw to room temperature and add ice-cream or whipped cream.
If you give these a try please leave a review! I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts.
-Mr.CBB
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I think I will be looking for that condensed milk to be on sale!! This looks like something I could fudge easily. Maybe cut back a little on the shortbread and add oatmeal and slivered almonds to the top…. Sort of like I do for a cherry fruit crisp. Definitely some food for thought here..pun intended. Yum, yum, yum…….
That sounds like a great idea to switch it up a bit if you’d like but trust me this is an awesome recipe as is.. mmm!!
Sounds like a delicious recipe. I’ll have to try to make a gluten free version for my gf. She loves coconut and cherry
Would it be just the flour choice you would have to change? I’m not too familiar with the Gluten-free lifestyle. I hope you give it a go and let me know what she thinks.
Looking good there. I too will be looking for the condensed milk on sale!!
Of course they are..I made them 🙂 You gonna show me up now lol?