Cherries c/o the Northwest Cherry Growers.
Do you need an easy dessert to bring to a barbecue, but want something slightly different from the usuals? Try jazzing up your go-to desserts with seasonal fruit!
Summer has so many options with berry and stone fruit season, you really can’t go wrong. You can tweak that old recipe that calls for dried fruit and use fresh ingredients instead. For us, right now is a berry and cherry celebration. And in my opinion, fresh cherries and dark chocolate go together like peanut butter and jelly. These bars are like a marriage between black forest cake and brownies. Maybe.
Very Cherry Dark Chocolate Dessert Bars
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 tablespoons water
- 2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 cups flour
- 1/3 cup 100% cacao baking cocoa powder
- 10 ounces (1 standard package) dark chocolate chips
- 1 1/2 cups chopped pitted cherries
Pit your cherries. You can use a knife, but I use a manual cherry pitter. It gets messy, so I prefer doing it outside. Seriously, we spray the walls with cherry juice every time.
Preheat oven to 350°. Line the bottom of a 9×13 pan with parchment paper, and butter the sides of pan.
In a large bowl, combine the oil, vanilla, eggs, water, and brown sugar.
In a separate bowl, mix together the salt, baking powder, cocoa, and flour.
Gently combine wet and dry ingredients in the large bowl. Mix in your chopped cherries, then your chocolate chips.
Pour the batter into the 9×13 pan. Spread to cover the bottom of the pan.
Bake at 350° for 25-30 minutes.
Remove from the oven, cool completely. Separate from pan sides with a knife and cut into bars. You should get 18 generously sized bars.
Since the cherries are fresh and not dried, you might want to refrigerate if the bars are going to be sitting around for several days. They certainly don’t last that long in my house, but we also have a lot of people living here! They will be pretty gooey and attract fruit flies, so don’t leave them sitting out for long.
Cherries c/o the Northwest Cherry Growers.
Also check out:
Cherry Chive Vinaigrette Salad Dressing
Homemade Cherry Yogurt Ice Pops, A Taste of Summer