I’ve talked about my dad in here before.  He died in 2006 from complications due to diabetes after having lived next door to me for about 8 years.He was an ornery cuss at times and did things I know he regretted because he apologized many times over for them but he was my best friend nonetheless.

He was generous to a fault and man did he love his food, especially sweets. That man could inhale some sweets! I mean, really. He would buy a six pack of ice cream bars and eat them in one night. Or on Halloween, he would buy a few gazillion bags of candy, ostensibly for the trick or treaters but I still laugh over how the kids got all the smarties or dum dum suckers and somehow, there just HAPPENED to be 14 bags of “the good stuff”, aka mini Snickers and the like, left for him to eat. As a diabetic, he shouldn’t have been eating it at all, but he had no willpower when it came to candy. He would give me that wonderful little boy giggle he had, smile and tell me he would only eat a little this time. My dad was a wonderful mix of a wise man and a young boy all tucked into a six foot tall sweets loving body.

One of the things he totally loved was cherry cordials. OMG, could he eat those like they were going to be going off market any second! He would buy a ton of them when they were on sale at Christmas (as well as 97 other times during the year) and when I would pretend to glare at him as he shoved boxes in his grocery cart, he would laugh and say, “just one more box hon!”

Dad would have loved these bars. He and Russ, my husband, would have been fighting over them because they are one of Russells favorites among the baked goods that I make. Speaking of inhaling… Russ is a diabetic also and is pretty good about not eating the bad things but when I make these, all control goes out the windows. So I don’t make them often. When I do though, I quietly smile over the mental image I get of dad and Russ sitting down together to talk with some coffee and a plate of these Cherry Cordial Bars. I wish they’d met.

This recipe originally comes from food.com. I have made some changes over the years but not many.

Chocolate Covered Cherry Bars

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 large eggs
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar, tightly packed
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons almond extract
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 can cherry pie filling
• 1 bag Dove Dark Chocolate And Cherry Swirl candies, coarsely chopped (can use the dark chocolate and Raspberry ones too when the others aren’t out, but the flavor will be different)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13×9 inch pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine the butter and sugar. Beat until fluffy.
3. Add in the eggs and extracts.
4. Combine the flour and baking soda together and mix into the bowl of wet ingredients. The mixture will be thick.
5. Pour in the cherry pie filling and mix well.
6. Fold in the candy pieces. Spread mixture in the prepared pan.
7. Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes or until light brown and the top springs back when touched.
8. Let cool and cut into squares.
9. This is a very moist bar, pretty much a cross between a cake and a bar cookie.