Chocolate Cherry Brownies

These ridiculously good Chocolate Cherry Brownies combine the richness of chocolate with the sweetness of cherries. A classic flavour combination that works every time. These gooey, fudgey brownies will have you sneaking a second before you know it!

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Brownies for the win

Why is it that brownies are one of the most popular treats out there? I swear, the minute these go in the oven the kids come flocking like seagulls.

The inevitable question of “Are they ready yet’ follows. And once the brownies come out of the oven I have to bat little prying fingers away with a wooden spoon!

The lure of the crackle top and gooey centre is often too much! Especially with my kids. It takes the patience of a saint to wait until they’re sufficiently cooled to be able to cut them into decent looking squares!

The trick is to cut the brownies when cooled enough to hold their shape, yet still warm and gooey in the middle. Topped off with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream and this is my version of dessert heaven!

Team cake v team fudgey?

The are two camps when it comes to the texture of brownies. Which one are you?

Brownies with a cake-like texture

So the brownies in team cake have a lighter, fluffier consistency when baked, much like that of a cake. The butter and sugar are beaten until pale and fluffy, then lightly beaten eggs are added to the mixture.

The dry ingredients are then gently folded into the batter so as not to knock the air out. There’s also a higher amount of flour and the resulting brownies have a more of a sponge-like centre once baked and hold their shape a lot better.

Brownies with that fudgey consistency

The trick to getting this gooey denser type of brownie is by leaving out a leavening agent. We do this in two ways. Firstly the butter and sugar isn’t beaten to trap air. Secondly there’s no baking powder in such a recipe. The omission of this makes for a denser, gooier centre.

Martha Stewart explains the difference between the two well in this article: found here.

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How to make these Chocolate Cherry Brownies

Before we get into the stet-by-step method I want to address the addition of the cherries. Chocolate and cherries and always a perfect flavour pairing. The richness of the chocolate compliments the sweet, moistness of the cherries.

Now I made these brownies when cherries were out of season. So I used tinned black cherries. For you purists who only like to use fresh fruit in your baking, then by all means wait until cherry season. De-stone fresh cherries and pop these babies right into the batter before baking.

But I love chocolate and cherries together and quite frankly didn’t want to wait until I saw them at the fruit stall in the market. These tinned cherries worked perfectly!

Step-by-step making of these brownies

1. We need to melt the butter, chocolate and sugar together. We do this by using a bain marie. Place a bowl that can sit snuggly over a saucepan of boiling water. Make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t come into contact with the boiling water though. Then add the ingredients and stir until the chocolate and sugar are fully melted. Then set to one side.
2. In a separate bowl whisk the dry ingredients together. That’s the flour, cocoa powder and salt, and then set to one side.
3. Time to beat the eggs. In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the eggs until pale and fluffy. Doing this helps create that shiny, crackly top on the brownies. Then pour in the chocolate mixture and vanilla extract into the beaten eggs and mix until combined.
4. Next add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
5. Last step is to fold in the dark chocolate chips and cherries. I choose to fold them in gently as I want the tinned cherries to retain their shape in the batter.
6. Finally pour the batter into your brownie pan and smooth before sprinkling some extra choc chips over the top.
7. Bake between 20-25 minutes. These are the gooey fudgey type of brownies and we definitely don’t want to over bake these. I would set your timer for 20 minutes and do the toothpick test. If you stick it in and there’s wet batter on the toothpick then the brownies need a bit more time.
8. Once baked you can by all means eat the brownies straight out of the tin. But I prefer to allow them to cool for 20 minutes before lifting them out of the tin and then cutting into squares. They’ll still be warm and gooey, so if you’d prefer more structure to them when cutting then allow them to cool completely.

For other delicious home-made bar recipes check out these:

Browned Butter White Chocolate Blondies. Recipe found here.

Chocolate Raspberry Crumble Bars. Recipe found here.

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