Apricot Cherry Bars
Recipe photography by DianaEatingRichly
Quick Overview
Total time from prep to done: 35 minutes
Yield: Approximately 50 small snack bars
Total ingredients: 10
Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
¾ cup packed light brown sugar
¼ teaspoon fine salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
2 cups sweetened flaked coconut
2 cups sliced almonds
2 cups dried cherries (about 10 ounces by weight)
2 cups dried apricots, coarsely chopped (about 16 ounces by weight)
21 ounces sweetened condensed milk
Step-by-Step Instructions
Adjust your oven rack to the lower-middle position, then preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Coat a 13"×9" glass baking dish with nonstick vegetable cooking spray, and set it aside.
In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the flour, oats, brown sugar, and salt until evenly combined.
Add the melted butter to the dry mixture, and stir with a fork until everything is fully incorporated and the mixture forms small clumps.
Pack 1 ½ cups of this crumb mixture into the bottom of your prepared baking dish, pressing firmly to form an even, thin base crust.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the coconut, almonds, dried cherries, chopped apricots, and sweetened condensed milk. Mix until all ingredients are evenly blended and coated.
Pour the filling over the crust, spread it into an even layer, and press it down firmly.
Sprinkle the remaining crumb mixture evenly over the top of the fruit filling.
Bake for roughly 30 minutes, until the top turns a light golden brown. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let the bars cool completely to room temperature.
You can store the cooled bars, covered, at room temperature for up to 2 days. When ready to serve, cut into 1 ½-inch square bars.
Home Cook Reviews
These are absolutely unreal! I whipped up a batch tonight for a bake sale tomorrow, and couldn’t help sneaking a taste—now I’m already planning a second batch next week for my regular Wednesday night group, I can’t let them miss out on this. Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful recipe! I made this for the PRMR Tag challenge.
I’m giving this 5 full stars for flavor alone! I ended up baking my batch longer than 30 minutes, which is probably just my oven running cool, but it was a little underdone when I pulled it out at the half hour mark. The flavor is so rich, and all the fruit and nut notes taste absolutely delicious. I could only find one 5-oz package of dried cherries, so I substituted the remaining 5 oz with cherry-flavored craisins, and it still turned out great. Thanks for sharing!
These bars are absolutely amazing—our whole family loved them! My local grocery store didn’t have sweetened condensed milk, so I made my own from scratch. The flaked coconut available here is unsweetened too, so the finished bars weren’t overly sweet, which was exactly how we like them. I used whole almonds that I chopped up myself, and couldn’t find dried cherries so I swapped in glazed cherries instead. I sent half the batch with my husband for his class, and everyone there raved about it too. Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe, I will absolutely be making it again!
Wow, these bars are fantastic—they’re very sweet, but so incredibly good! A small piece is more than enough to satisfy any sweet craving. The only change I made was swapping dried cranberries for the cherries, but I think this recipe would work just as well with raisins or any kind of nut. Thanks for the great recipe!
