Our cherry season is over here, but it was a good, long one this year! Every year this is H’s favorite fruit picking trip, and she just keeps growing up on me.

It was a great crop at Battleview Orchards, we went back in late June as soon as the season opened.

We picked enough for a pie, but we decided to do something different with the cherries this year.

I made Martha Stewart’s Sour Cherry Crumb Cakes with the cherries this year, and it was a pretty great dessert for our July 4th cookout. We’ve been cutting out sugar and carbs where we can, but sometimes I make a full-on dessert. Other times, like with these bars, I change up some of the ingredients. I’ll post the recipe below, but if you still have access to pie cherries, and you want to make a classic pie with no tweaks, here’s my favorite cherry pie recipe! It looks like this, and it is soooooo gooood.

But here’s the crumb cake recipe! I’ve linked to the original but posted below with the ingredients I swapped out. The texture was still fantastic, and if there’s one flavor that goes so well with sour cherries, it’s almond. You could probably swap out the flour completely, but I’m still experimenting to get it right.

Martha Stewart’s Sour Cherry Crumb Cakes, adapted to be a little lower carb by me:

FOR THE TOPPING
2 ounces (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for dish
*3/4 cup almond flour
*1/4 cup granulated coconut sugar, like this one
1/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

FOR THE CAKES
*1 cup almond flour
*1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
*1/2 cup coconut sugar
*1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 1/2 cups (1 pound) fresh sour cherries, pitted, or frozen dark sweet cherries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, butter a 9″ square baking dish, and dust it with flour. Tap out the excess.

Make the topping by stirring together butter, the two flours, the sugars, salt, and cinnamon.

To make the cakes, whisk together the flours, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. With a mixer, cream butter and coconut sugar in another bowl until pale and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Working in alternating batches, add flour mixture, then buttermilk, then flour mix, buttermilk, and finally flour mix. Beat until just combined.

Pour into prepared dish, and smooth with an offset spatula. Dot top with cherries, and sprinkle with crumb topping.
Bake until golden and a tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let cool before cutting.