Strawberry Squares, these delicious baked treats are easy to make, feel free to use your favorite pie filling flavor!
Strawberry Squares
This easy baked dessert is semi-homemade, the cake is made from scratch but it’s filled with canned pie filling. Strawberry is my favorite flavor, but this can be switched up with cherry, apple, apricot, etc.
The fist time we made this recipe, my daughter Karina baked them when she was still in her teens. The original recipe is from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook, More From Magnolia: Recipes from the World Famous Bakery
. For those who never heard of the Magnolia Bakery it’s a pretty well known bakery here in New York City, famous for their cupcakes. When I worked in the city, my boss would order cupcakes from there whenever it was someone’s birthday, I couldn’t resist the red velvet and I’m not really a cupcake person!
Anyway, these simple cake squares have been a hit since 2010, you can go back and read the comments and see how everyone made them their own. I was surprised at how flavorful and flaky they were with such few ingredients.
The original recipe called for cherry pie filling, which I am not a fan of, so I used strawberry filling instead. For holiday baking, cherry pie, strawberry or even raspberry looks festive.
Variations:
- Pie Filling Variations – any pie filling would work, try blueberry, apricot or apple pie.
- Fruit Preserves – You can also use low-sugar fruit preserves in place of pie filling
- Lemon Curd – try swapping the pie filling for lemon curd
- Fruit butters such as pumpkin butter or apple butter would also taste great in place of pie filling.
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Strawberry Squares
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, or GF flour
- 1/2 cup canned strawberry pie filling
- confectioner's sugar for dusting
- baking spray
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Spray Baking Pam in a 13 x 9- inch baking pan.
- In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter with the granulated sugar until smooth, about 2 minutes.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Add the vanilla.
- Add the flour and mix thoroughly.
- Spread the dough evenly in the prepared pan.
- With a small, sharp knife (or toothpick), score into twenty-four 2-inch squares.
- Place a teaspoon of pie filling in the center of each scored square.
- Bake for 30 - 35 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the pan comes out clean.
- Cool to room temperature, then sprinkle with confectioner's sugar before cutting and serving.
