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.
Gina, Possible to cut the eggs Down to maybe 1 or 2?
Just made these for Valentine’s Day dessert tonight. They are delicious! (yes, I had to taste test first before dinner!) I made 1/2 recipe in an 8×8 square pan and used a cookie cutter to make them into heart shapes. I also made them with Truvia Sweet Complete and Good Good Strawberry Jam to cut the sugar grams down. I’m confident my husband will love them!
Love that!!
Excellent. Also made my own strawberry topping. 1 cup strawberries cut up, 2 Tbsp sugar, 2 tsps fresh lemon juice. Cooked for ten minutes. Stirring constantly. Cool . Also added 1/2 tsp almond extract. Vanilla Nad almond extracts a great combination.
This recipe is a keeper and worthy of a company dinner
These are delicious! I made them with GF flour and made homemade filling because I had fruit to use up. I made strawberry and blueberry filling following the tip from another comment (purée 1 cup of fruit and the bring to a boil with 2T sugar and 2tsp lemon juice; continue to boil for 10 minutes; allow to cool completely). They were very easy to make and cut easily once cooled. Great recipe!
Did anyone find these super sweet??? Because of the sugar, not the filling
Love! I’ve made these a few times now. I too had the batter covering the pie filling issue – so, I simply added another dollop of pie filling when it was all done. Huge hit. Small squares make for perfect small treat! They look great too! I’ve made them with cherry filling and blueberry filling. Another hit!
I made this recipe twice and each time, the batter covers the cherries. What am I doing wrong?
Can I use guava paste?
Sure
I wonder if these can be frozen?
Sure
Is the baking time the same for all-purpose or gluten-free flour? It’s an even 1:1 swap?
I tried making this with coconut flour. Typically for every cup of all-purpose flour you only use 1/4 of a cup of coconut flour. So I did a half a cup of coconut flour and two eggs instead of four. Came out horrible. It’s just a pile of strawberry, sugary mess.
Why aren’t the calories listed?
Fixed now.
Hi! I don’t see a calorie count for this? Do you have it? Have you stopped listing the calorie info? That is personally what I follow as I eat from all food groups but want to keep my calories under a certain number. If possible, I’d love to see that info too as the points etc aren’t something that I work with or totally understand. Thank you!!
Nutritional info is listed under the recipe, there was a typo on this on calories were left out. Fixed now. 138 🙂
This is a traditional Midwest recipe my family has been baking for over 50 years. So simple yet so tasty!
Calories?
Don’t see calories listed. (Not that they’d stop me from making this!)
Fixed! 138
So easy to make, but may filling spread a lot so not super pretty. I did use strawberry preserves instead of pie filing because that’s what I had in the house. I used 1 teaspoon and the preserves spread all all over the squares. So disappointed…I didn’t think that would happen. : / Unfortunate that they didn’t turn out as pretty as the picture but they taste amazing!
Have these in the oven now, made them with raspberry pie filling!
Can I use splenda instead and polaner sugar free strawberry jam instead?
Sure
Made this yesterday and it turned out perfect, just like the ones in your photo. Thank you so much for the simple, yet delicious, recipe. My substitutions were Lemon curd instead of Strawberry and 1/4 tsp each salt and baking soda. I'm going to do this again with orange zest and a bit of orange juice. Yum! Love your blog.
Oops, forgot other subs- 1 cup each – white whole wheat & all purpose flour + 4 egg white subs.