Cherry Crumble Bars

Cherry crumble bars, they just sound delicious. They are so amazingly simple to make and you can either cut them into bars or bite size pieces. In all honesty I just wanted to leave it all in the pan and pour some custard over it. There's only two steps to these; make the cherry mixture and make the crumble mixture. Super easy.

You can buy tinned cherries and drain them if you don't want to have to pit them. An easy way to pit them is to set the cherry on top of a thin necked bottle and use a chopstick to push the pip through. I actually find it quite therapeutic...and kind of like licking my cherry stained fingers. They are quite moorish, so don't eat them all. Highly recommend eating them warm with some ice cream. Love cherries? Check out this delicious recipe.

Cherry Crumble Bars

Serves: 8 barsPrep time: 10 minsCook time: 45 minsTotal time: 55 mins

Ingredients

• 300g cherries, pitted and halved (2 cups)
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 100g unsalted butter, melted (1/2 cup)
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 100g white sugar (1/2 cup)
• Half tsp baking powder
• Half tsp bicarbonate soda
• 200g plain flour (1 and a half cups)

Directions

1. You'll need an 8x12 inch square pan, grease it and set aside.
2. Pre-heat oven to 350f/180c/gas mark 4. Melt butter and set aside to cool.
3. Pit and halve your cherries and pop them in a bowl with 1 tbsp cornflour and 1 tbsp lemon juice, mix and set aside.
4. In a separate bowl mix flour, sugar, bicarb and baking powder.
5. Add melted butter to flour mixture and mix to a crumble like consistency.
6. Use half of the crumble mixture and press it down firm into the bottom of you square pan. Add cherry mixture and then finally top with the other half of the crumble mixture, just gently scattering it on the top.
7. Pop in the oven for 45 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.
8. Allow to cool completely before chopping into bars.