Cherry Almond Squares - all natural ingredients & flavours!
Cherry Almond Squares. Cherry and almond flavours are a natural flavour combination. This is the easiest recipe that I've found yet to make these cookie bars using fresh or frozen cherries.
Originally published Nov 2016.
I'm pretty sure that the first version of these Cherry Almond Squares I ever encountered was on the side of a cherry pie filling can. When you Google the recipe or search it on Pinterest, there certainly are a lot of recipes that include the cherry pie filling.
I am not a fan of most cherry pie filings that I've tried. Generally I find them too chemically tasting and full of artificial colour, not like the taste of real cherry.
Real sweet cherries are readily available as frozen all year round. I see little reason to have to resort to the neon red, canned pie filling alternative.
This recipe simply tosses the cherries in a little sugar and corn starch and you're done. It couldn't be simpler really, as is the buttery base that incorporates ground almonds for nothing but real favours.
Freezing Cherry Almond Squares.
In my testing of the recipe, I froze had the batch as soon as they were cooled off and then thawed them a couple of days later.
I do make one recommendation for thawing all baked goods. Make sure that they are unwrapped or the cover taken off of containers when they come out of the freezer.
Humidity trapped inside can cause some baked goods to absorb that moisture and not be at their best. When I thawed these Cherry Almond Squares they were practically as good as the day they were baked.
With Christmas just weeks away, they would make another fine addition to your Holiday freezer. They make a nice easy-to-make treat year round too.
If you love the flavour of natural cherry combined with almond please take a look at this delicious Cherry Swirl Almond Crumble Coffee Cake recipe too.
If you liked this recipe you may also want to check out this recipe for Nanaimo Bars.
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Cherry Almond Squares - all natural ingredients & flavours!
Cherry Almond Squares - cherry and almond flavours are a natural combination and this is the easiest recipe that I've found yet to make these cookie bars using fresh or frozen cherries.
Ingredients
- 1 ⅓ cups flour
- 1 ⅓ cups ground almonds
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- ¾ cup sugar
- ¾ cup butter
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- 2 ½ cups pitted cherries. If using frozen, thaw them first.
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon corn starch
- 1 tablespoon water
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9x9 baking pan and line it with parchment paper.
- Add the flour, almonds, baking powder & ¾ cup sugar to a food processor and pulse until well combined. I buy the almonds already ground but you can grind whole almonds in a food processor if you like.
- Cut the butter into small cubes and add to the food processor. Pulse until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. (You can just do this with a pastry cutter to rub the butter in with your fingers if you prefer.)
- Mix together the egg yolks and Vanilla and almond extracts. Mix into the crumble mixture until a soft dough forms.
- Press ⅔ of the dough evenly into the bottom of the prepared pan.
- Mix together the ¼ cup of sugar and corn starch. Toss with eh cherries and stir in the water. Spread evenly over the cookie dough in the pan.
- Press together the remaining dough and break off thumbnail sized pieces and scatter them evenly over and between the cherries.
- Bake for about 45 minutes or until the top layer is golden brown at the centre.
- Cool completely in the pan before cutting into 24 cookie bars.
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Rock Recipes a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Our product recommendations are almost exclusively for those we currently use or have used in the past.
Nutrition Information
Yield
24Serving Size
24 cookie barsAmount Per Serving Calories 160Total Fat 10gSaturated Fat 4gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 6gCholesterol 31mgSodium 100mgCarbohydrates 18gFiber 1gSugar 11gProtein 3g
The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.
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How did you grind the almonds without making almond butter? Can you use store bought almond flour/meal?
I use already ground almonds.
Could you use dried cherries in this recipe or do you have a recipe using dried cherries.
Dried cherries might get rubbery. Maybe if you rehydrated them?
I made these yesterday. Ground my almonds in a coffee grinder. I used local cherries that I picked and canned during cherry season. I had previously used some of these cherrie to make my own maraschino cherries and this is what I used in the squares. They are absolutely delicious! This recipe is definitel6 a keeper.
Thank you, a great treat.