Chocolate Cherry Brownies

A quick and easy recipe for decadent double chocolate and cherry brownies. These brownies are made with fresh cherries and loaded with chocolate chips for the ultimate rich cherry fudge brownie bar.

Jump to:

• Why you'll love these Brownies
• Equipment Notes
• Ingredient Notes
• How to Make Cherry Brownies
• Tips for Baking with Fresh Cherries
• Expert Tips
• Storage Advice
• Freezer Guidance
• Substitutions and Variations
• FAQs
• Looking for More Brownie Inspiration?
• More Cherry Recipes
• Chocolate Cherry Brownies

Why you'll love these Brownies

• Fresh cherries - I love baking with fresh fruit! These fudgy chocolate cherry brownies are filled with fresh cherries for a super special treat.
• Easy one bowl recipe and a classic 8" square pan bake - this recipe uses my favorite minimalist tools for maximum joy and limited clean up.
• My secret ingredient - Amarena cherry syrup. This syrup gives a little extra punch to these gooey brownies. Plus if you're an Amarena cherry lover anyway, this is a great way to use some of that glorious syrup!

Equipment Notes

To make these chocolate chip cherry brownies, you'll need:

• Knife and/or cherry pitter - so this is the one piece of slightly specialist equipment needed in this recipe. You'll want to ensure the stones are removed from the fruit and then these should also be halved for the recipe. Personally I just use a sharp knife, but this can lead to a bit more mess than if you have a cherry pitter on hand as well.
• 8" square baking pan - you can use a 9" pan or other sizes, but the different sizes/shapes will have an impact on the baking times. Just bake aware!
• Parchment paper - lining your baking pan with parchment paper will make your life a lot easier when it comes time to remove from the oven.
• Mixing bowl - you'll need a large mixing bowl for the batter.
• Sieve - for sifting your dry ingredients together. I'm not going to lie, I don't always sift...but it is best for ensuring you don't end up with clumps of dry ingredients in the dough!
• Whisk - a standard balloon whisk is my favorite here.
• Spatula - a rubber spatula is usually perfect for this!

Ingredient Notes

For these fudgy cherry brownies, you'll need:

• Eggs - large eggs, ideally at room temperature for baking.
• Oil - you'll want to use a flavorless oil like canola oil or sunflower oil. You can use olive oil in this recipe, but the olive oil will impart a flavor, which you may wish to avoid.
• Amarena cherry syrup - this is a great recipe to use some of the syrup from a jar of Amarena cherries. Alternatively, you can substitute with kirsch (cherry liqueur) - the alcohol will essentially bake out, so these won't be left as boozy brownies.
• Flour - either all purpose or plain flour work in this recipe.
• Sugar - this recipe is best with superfine granulated sugar or caster sugar.
• Powdered sugar - or icing sugar.
• Cocoa powder - Dutch-processed cocoa powder will ensure a deep chocolatey flavor to your fudge brownies.
• Cherries - this recipe has been developed using fresh cherries. You'll want dark sweet cherries, cut in half and pits removed. You can use frozen cherries, but you should defrost these first for best results.
• Chocolate chips - I like to use dark chocolate chips to give extra richness to the cherries. You could also use white chocolate or milk chocolate chips. Alternatively, if you don't have any chips available, try chopping up solid chocolate into small chunks.

How to Make Cherry Brownies

These brownies are a super simple recipe. As with my other brownies or bars, like my Ferrero Rocher Brownies or my Fluffernutter Brownies, you'll want to begin by preheating the oven and lining a square baking pan with parchment paper. Trust me - lining the pan will make your life so much easier!

Then follow these steps:

Step 1: In a large bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. These are the oil, eggs and cherry syrup. Once combined, set aside.

Step 2: Sift together the dry ingredients - the flour, cocoa powder and sugars. For ease of clean up, you can sift these straight into the wet ingredients, or you can sift them into a separate mixing bowl before adding them.

Step 3: Once the dry ingredients have been added to the wet, stir with a spatula until just combined. Avoid overbeating, but also try not to leave any patches of unmixed flour.

Step 4: Add about two thirds of the cherry halves and about two thirds of your chocolate chips to the batter and fold through to distribute.

Step 5: Pour this into the prepared tray and spread evenly. Then, add the remaining cherries and chocolate chips to the top, pressing the cherries lightly into the surface of the batter.

Step 6: Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out mostly clean. The key for a fudgy brownie is not to have the toothpick completely clean! If it is, then your brownies will be a bit overdone and dry.

Step 7: Remove from the oven and allow to cool before slicing.

Tips for Baking with Fresh Cherries

Fresh cherries are a great ingredient to use in baking. These are just a couple of quick tips you may want to follow for working with them in this and other recipes.

• Make sure to remove the stems and pits. To do this, I slice my cherries in half and then remove the stone. You can use a little gadget specifically for pitting cherries, but I find it a bit of an unnecessary extra appliance and often will cut out more of the actual cherry fruit in the process.
• If you are using average sized cherries, cutting them in half will be fine for this recipe. But, if you happen to be lucky enough to find good king size cherries, you may want to quarter these. King size cherries can be HUGE and might be too big to mix into the batter when only halved.
• Working with fresh cherries (and fresh fruit in general) will add moisture to a bake. This may result in the brownies not lasting quite as long as some of my other brownie recipes. These brownies with cherries are at their best if eaten within 2 days, though they will keep for up to 4.

Expert Tips

If you've made some of my other brownie recipes, like my Caramel Coconut Samoas Brownies or my Salted Caramel Turtle Brownies, you won't be surprised by some of these tips! But whether you're a seasoned brownie pro or these are your first batch, we're here to help!

My top tips are:

• Line your baking pan! It's a simple process for a square pan - two overlapping sheets of parchment that slightly overhang the sides, will give you excellent coverage. It might seem an extra step and a pain, but it will save you the trouble of fudgy brownies sticking to your pan! Unlined baking pans are also prone to burnt bottoms!
• Avoid overbeating the batter - I do this by using a spatula to mix the dry ingredients. If you work the flour in too strenuously, you may end up with a cakier texture.
• Don't overbake! If you want fudgy brownies, the key is to remove these from the oven before the center is baked solid. A few crumbs should stick to the toothpick when you check.
• By the same token as the not overbaking, don't rush to cut! Baked to a gooey perfection, the brownies will be one step away from molten when they're fresh from the oven. Let these set up, but letting them cool in the pan for about 1-2 hours (kitchen temperature conditions, dependent - a hot kitchen will need longer to cool).

Storage Advice

These brownies are best stored in a cool place in an airtight container. I personally find refrigeration prone to staling bakes, however, if these are kept well wrapped, the refrigerator may be your friend here. I recommend any refrigerated bake be allowed back to room temperature before consuming for best flavor.

Due to the fresh fruit, these brownies don't last quite so well as some of my other bars, like my Brookies, which I've merrily eaten over a week after baking! I'd recommend consuming within 2 days for best results, before they become soggy.

Freezer Guidance

These cherry chocolate brownies are a good option if you want to make something ahead and/or get a good stockpile in your freezer. Bake as directed and allow to cool completely before slicing. Flash freeze the slices in a single layer before stacking in a freezer safe bag or container for more efficient storage.

I highly recommend cutting into pieces before freezing - this means that you can defrost individual brownies as and when you want them! No need to defrost the whole tray's worth if you only want a couple. This will save you brownies for later and reduce waste.

Substitutions and Variations

Whether you need to make amendments here or just want to make these your own, here are some easy variations that work well:

• Frozen cherries - you can make these brownies with frozen cherries, just let the frozen cherries defrost first. I don't recommend using dried cherries, simply because these will have a different texture to the fresh fruit. The recipe does work with them, but it's not quite the same!
• Different chocolates - you can use white chocolate or milk chocolate in this recipe. You can even leave out the chocolate chips if you need to or prefer. This won't dramatically impact the baking time, just keep an eye on them as they may bake slightly more quickly (a minute or so).
• Add nuts - if you want to add some texture, walnuts or pecans go well with the flavors here. You can add a couple of ounces of chopped nuts without issue.
• Use butter instead of oil - you can substitute butter in place of the oil in this recipe. For best results it should be melted and cooled slightly before following the recipe as written.

FAQs

Looking for More Brownie Inspiration?

• Oreo Cheesecake Brownies
• Salted Caramel Turtle Brownies
• Potato Chip Brownies
• Easy Brownie Bites

More Cherry Recipes

• Chocolate Cherry Cinnamon Rolls
• Cherry Blueberry Cobbler
• Cherry Curd
• Cherry Bakewell Blondies