These bars were the result of a wild baking spree that started early in the morning and went all day until the flour was gone. No flour, no more baking? No way! There was cake mix in the pantry, so we kept the party going and made Cherry Dream Bars, a very old recipe which I tend to forget about but which is always a hit. This is most definitely a convenience food recipe, but so much better than the sum of its parts. Also, these cherry bars freeze well!
Jump to Recipe
Cherry Dream Bar Ingredients
The bars are made with cake mix, oats, pie filling, brown sugar, butter, and an egg. Nuts are optional, but I like throwing them in for some extra crunch. Even though these are called Cherry Dream Bars, you can make them with whatever flavor you like. For this batch I used Lucky Leaf's dark cherry pie filling. I never paid enough attention to realize there was a dark and a non-dark. This was definitely dark.
Here's a photo of the finished bars.
You can make these in a food processor or with a blender. I used to make them with a food processor and cold butter, but using softened butter and just mixing it in with the cake mix works just as well.
Cherry Dream Bar Notes & Tips
I'm adding a few more notes to this recipe since it's been a while. The bars are just as easy as ever. I almost always line pans with parchment or foil because it allows you to lift the bars out of the pan and slice. With these bars you can do that or just bake them directly in the pan and serve them right out of the pan. It depends on the situation. If making ahead you should definitely line the pan with foil (and grease it) or parchment. That way you can lift out of the pan, wrap tightly and freeze the whole slab of bars without cutting. You can then go ahead and cut them a few hours ahead while still frozen.
Recipe
Cherry Dream Bars
Ingredients
- 1 box white or yellow cake mix
- ½ cup salted butter cut into 8 T. and softened
- 1 ¼ cups oats -- divided
- 1 large egg
- 21 oz can of cherry pie filling
- ½ cup chopped nuts optional
- ¼ cup brown sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 13x9 inch baking pan.
- Mix cake mix, 6 tablespoons of the softened butter and 1 cup of oats until crumbly. Set aside 1 cup crumbs for topping.
- To remaining crumbs, add egg, mixing until well blended. Press into the 13 x 9-inch baking pan and pour pie filling over crust, spreading to cover.
- To the reserved 1 cup of crumbs add ¼ cup oats, the remaining 2 T. butter, nuts and brown sugar and mix thoroughly. Sprinkle over cherry mixture.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 to 40 minutes. Let cool, then slice into bars and serve.
Anna says
JC, Thanks for the comment! I'm glad you like these too. It's an underrated recipe :).
JC says
I, too have used this recipe for years. It was given to me with the squares back in the early 1980’s, from an old Woman’s Day magazine. It has been a family favorite since then. We have used multiple pie filling in between. It’s a keeper recipe!
carole says
AnnaI went back and looked at your picture. My cookies look nothing like yours. They are wonderful tasting but don't look like yours. It looks like your base layer is thick and cake like while mine is a thin cookie type base. I can't find the recipe on Recipe Goldmine.Any idea what I did wrong?
Anna says
Hmmmmmm. Interesting.Here's a link to the recipe. It's the same one I used.http://www.recipegoldmine.com/cakemixcook/cakemixcook99.htmlDid you melt the butter before adding it to the cake mix? The recipe doesn't say how the butter should be -- softened or melted. I actually used cold butter and did it in the food processor to make the cookies flakey. Maybe that's it? Did you take out more than a cup of crumb mixture for the top? I guess it doesn't matter as long as they are good ;).
carole says
I forgot to say that I chopped the peaches a bit before spreading on base. They are whole slices and without chopping there is not enough to cover base.Still want to try blueberry. Have some berries in the freezer. Might make my own filling. Or, do you think the berries might make the cake blue?The combination of cake flavors and fruit is endless. How about chocolate cake and cherries for Black Forest?
Anna says
Carole, peach sounds good. I'll bet some crystallized ginger would be good with the peach-almond version.
carole says
anna,I made them using a can of peach pie filling (wanted blueberry but store was out) and they were great. Per your advise I added 1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract. Also used chopped almonds for nuts.This is one to play with.
Anna says
tg, I have a bunch of funky old recipes too....and crazy, abandoned scrapbooks. These days the kind of scrabbooking I like to do is electronic, but it sucks up loads of time -- time that I'd rather be baking.Carole, let me know how yours turn out. Next time, I might stir something into the filling to pump up the flavor a little -- maybe lemon juice or almond extract?
carole says
WOW. It's a dark, rainy and cold day in Cleveland (my heat just kicked on).I am headed into the kitchen to make these. I will welcome the heat from the oven.You could probably substitute any canned fruit for the cherries.Thanks for sharing.
tg says
One of my very first jobs, i worked w/ a group of gals and we used to do an informal recipe-sharing club (which was, of course, all about shirking work); i have this very cherry dream bar recipe, printed on one of the really old dot-matrix printers (this would date back to um 1980-ish), pasted into the back of the scrapbook i kept religiously. i still remember the youthful excitement of sharing recipes and learning how to cook, at the same time that i laugh at how funky some of those recipes are...