Shutterbean.com has been a favorite blog of mine for many years. Tracy is a talented photographer and decorator/designer/organizer and has great recipes. It’s always fun and interesting to read what she has to say. When I saw this recipe for Cherry Pie Crumble Bars that she posted recently, I new I had to make it immediately.

This is cherry season after all and when cherry season arrives, we are all-cherries-all-the-time in this house.

These bars are quick and mostly easy to assemble. I said “mostly” because I do not have a cherry pitter. If you have one, it will be very easy for you. I ordered one but it was not coming for a few days and since I am terribly impatient once I get an idea in my head, I went ahead and prepared the cherries without one.

Before that, I needed to assemble the crust, starting with creaming the softened butter and sugar, then adding the flour and salt.

But first, let me digress…I assembled these items after the heart attack I gave myself, upon looking into my almost empty flour jar… one can be very, very organized and prepared and then derailed by a teeny tiny thing like not having enough flour. Spoiler alert: I had just enough with only a teeny tiny bit left:

I pressed some of the mixture into the bottom of my prepared baking dish, reserving the rest for the topping, then moved on to the cherry mixture.

Here is how cherry pitting went for me:

It took me about 20 minutes to get the three cups I needed. It would take you-who-have-a-cherry-pitter about five minutes.

Once that was done, I added the sugar, lemon juice flour and salt to the cherries.

I added them to the prepared crust…

OMG doesn’t this look delicious already???

Then crumbled the reserved crust mixture on top.

Popped it into the oven and 1 hour and 10 minutes later…..

Mine got a little too brown – my oven seems to have uneven heat these days and I was waiting for the middle to bubble. But it was fine! The delicious buttery aroma of the crust permeated the kitchen! The worst part was waiting for them to cool for 20 minutes before taking them out of the dish to cool completely on a wire rack before cutting them into two-inch squares.

Seriously?

Who is going to wait that long when it smells this good and it is all-cherries-all-the-time season??? Not me.

They are DELICIOUS. You should make some. And check out Shutterbean.com!