Last weekend I made it to the farm, barely, to the last day of cherry picking of the season. The large farm was almost picked clean.
Thankfully I am nearly 6 feet tall and could reach the higher branches of the cherry trees, and my 6’1″ hubby was there to help. Two of the four varieties were left, but I didn’t care because every cherry was plump and delicious.
When I got home with the 5 pounds of organic fresh picked cherries the big question became, now what? I scoured through the pages of Pinterest and found a ton of yummy ideas.
With a little tweaking of a cherry bar, I came up with this yummy cherry blueberry oat bar recipe using fresh fruit.
Cherry Blueberry Oat Bar
Ingredients
- 3 cups pitted fresh cherries
- 1 cup fresh blueberries
- package of lemon or yellow cake mix
- 2 1/2 cups quick oats
- 1 cup butter melted
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- (optional use 1 can of cherry pie filling instead of fresh fruit)
Instructions
Filling
- Place pitted cherries and blueberries in a medium saucepan on medium heat covered until they release their juice. Then turn down to a simmer for about 10 minutes. Stir often.
- Mix together the cornstarch and sugar in a small bowl. Stir into cherry mixture. Bring to a simmer and cook until sauce is thickened (about 2-3 minutes). Let cool until just warm.
Oat Bars
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 9×13″ baking dish.
- Combine oats and cake mix in a large bowl. Add melted butter and stir until crumbly.
- Take half of the mixture and press down in the bottom of the baking dish. (This is the bottom layer of your bar.)
- Spread the homemade blueberry cherry pie filling (or 1 can of cherry pie filling) carefully over the oat mixture. Take care to make a nice flat surface covering all of the oats.
- Pour the rest of the oat mixture on top and gently spread evenly over the pie filling. Gently press down as if you are sealing it.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until the top is a light golden brown.
- Let cool or enjoy warm. Cut into bars. Enjoy!
This is my new favorite treat! It makes about 18-24 bars depending on how large you cut them. We served them warm with small scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Comment Below: What’s your favorite cherry treat?