My mom and I made these cherry kuchen bars last week (yes, it was a joint effort!) after finding the recipe in a holiday baking edition of Better Homes and Gardens. You may have seen this recipe referred to as cherry pie bars on other blogs or on Pinterest. Yep, it’s probably the same delicious recipe!

When I think of cherries, I’m transported to my childhood. My grandpa was a huge fan of cherry pies, in fact, I’m pretty sure he almost always had a half-eaten cherry pie in his kitchen!

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I grew to develop my own taste for cherry desserts, and this cherry kuchen bars recipe is absolutely at the top of my cherry sweets must-have list. Not only do these cherry kuchen bars taste heavenly, they are also drop dead gorgeous. Just… look.

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Cherry Kuchen Bars Recipe

You know, there are times when you try a recipe from a magazine and the end result looks NOTHING like the oh-so-perfect photo on the printed page, but this was not one of times.

Our version of the cherry kuchen bars looked every bit as beautiful as the magazine photos and that’s why I’m confident that yours will be picture-worthy, too.

Actually, I think that’s one of my favorite things about these delicious bars—they look as impressive as they taste. If you want to serve a delicious dessert that will make your guests say WOW, these cherry kuchen bars are for you.

The cherry kuchen (kuchen is the German word for cake, by the way) bars turned out moist and chewy with a little crisp around the edges. These cherry pie bars are sweet, but not too sweet. Honestly, I usually have to send these to work with my husband when I make them lest I eat half the pan while he’s at work and the kids are at school.

I did want to note that while the recipe states a 32 bar yield, we did not get that many out of the pan. We ended up cutting much larger pieces and had only 24 bars.

Of course, if you’re not a fan of cherries you could easily substitute your favorite pie filling.

RELATED: Check out my easy apple pie bites made with crescent rolls and apple pie filling!

I would also love to try this same recipe with blackberries.

How beautiful would that be?

Be sure to grab the recipe for these outrageously good cherry kuchen bars below.

We hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

Crazy About Dessert Bars? Try These!

Ingredients

½ cup butter softened
½ cup shortening
1 ¾ cups sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups all purpose flour
1 21- ounce can cherry pie filling or substitute your favorite

Powdered Sugar Icing:

1 ½ cups powdered sugar
¼ teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
2 to 3 tablespoons of milk make a drizzle consistency

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl beat butter and shortening with an electric mixer on medium speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, baking powder and salt. Beat until combined, scraping side of bowl occasionally. Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Using a wooden spoon, stir in any remaining flour. Reserve 1 ½ cups of the dough. Press the remaining dough on to the bottom of an ungreased 15x10x1-inch baking pan.
Bake for 12 minutes. Remove, then spread pie filling over crust in pan. Spoon reserved dough into small mounds over pie filling.
Bake an additional 30 minutes or until top is light brown. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Drizzle with powdered sugar icing. Cut and serve.

Notes

Slightly adapted from Better Homes & Gardens.

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Nutrition

Nutrition values are estimates, sourced from an online nutrition calculator. This information should never be considered a substitute for medical advice. Number of total servings shown is approximate. Actual number of servings will depend on your preferred portion sizes.

Course: Desserts

Cuisine: American

Keyword: cherry pie bars, kuchen

Did you make this?

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4.39 from 49 votes (44 ratings without comment)

75 Comments

Lilly says:

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So good, so easy, such unusual dough!!! Needed 1 and 1/2 cans of filling. The extra half was blueberry!!

Patricia Martin says:

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Can stick butter be used in place of shortening. Thank you

Debbie says:

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Can I use all butter and no shortening?

Deborah says:

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Just put mine in the oven. Smells heavenly. Can’t wait to serve them tonight for dinner to our guest. Going to serve some ice cream with them. My husband loves cherries and I always make him a cherry cheesecake with the cherries under the cheese cake topping. I think he might enjoy this just had much. Thanks for the recipe.

Going to try blueberries tomorrow for when my daughter and her family comes for Sunday dinner.

Eileen says:

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Going to convert to Gluten Free! Thank you for sharing.

Marsha says:

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I made these for a school potluck. The only thing I did different was, I used 2 cans of cherry pie filling. No leftovers.