Cherry Bars

If your sweetheart is a cherry fan (or dessert lover in general) these bars are easy to make and taste so good, especially warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Make your sweetie smile and make up a batch for Valentine’s Day.

Cast of cherry bar characters

Cream butter and sugar then add eggs, extracts and mix. Blend in dry ingredients.

Grease pan and spoon half the dough into the bottom.

Spoon in cherries.

Spread them out to every corner.

Top with remaining dough by dropping on top. Don’t try to spread. You want blobs and globs.

While the bars are baking, mix your glaze. Add milk, almond and vanilla extract to powdered sugar.

Then when the bars and done and still hot, pour glaze over the top.

And try not to eat the whole pan before you can share with the one who makes your heart pitter-patter.

Cherry Bars

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. almond extract

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp. slat

1 (21-oz.) can cherry pie filling

Glaze

1 cup powered sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. almond extract

2 tbsp. milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease an 8 x 8 baking pan. (You can double the recipe and bake in a large 15 x 10 baking pan).

Cream butter and sugar until well blended. Add eggs and mix. Add extracts and blend then stir in dry ingredients.

Spoon half the dough into the baking pan, pressing down lightly. It will be sticky.

Pour pie filling over the dough and spread out.

Drop remaining dough by the spoonful on top of filling.

Bake for 40 minutes, until top is golden brown. Drizzle with the glaze and serve warm. A scoop of vanilla ice cream makes it even better.

To make the glaze – combine sugar with extracts and milk. It should be very thin and pourable and smell deliciously of almond.