Chocolate cookie base, rich chocolate fudge, cherries and cherry flavored M&M’s – all in one irresistible bar! A scrumptious way to start the summer!
Cherries are one of my favorite stone fruits. Little gems of juice and sugary sweetness, they mark the beginning of summer.
During my childhood I spend most of the summer vacation at my grandparents house in the country side. The house near us belonged to the brother of my grand-grandmother and they had this big cherry tree in front of the house. Towards the end of may we’d see here the cherries beginning to ripe and by middle June, when school was over the tree was full with red juicy cherries, just ready to be picked up. Carefully we’d climb up the tree and eat to our heart’s desire.
The joy of childhood. Not a thing to worry about.
With just a little over two months before I start packing for our trip to Romania I’m beginning to reminisce more and more about my home town.
When we picked cherries for this month Chocolate party, memories of my grand-grandmother came to mind. She lived well in her 90’s and loved cherries. I remember her saying “cherry season is my favorite time of the year”. It is indeed a beautiful season.
With her memory in my mind I made these chocolate cherry bars.
The basic recipe is the one from Hershey’s cookbook, I mentioned it before when I made the chocolate chip bars.
This time I followed the the recipe, I actually kept the fudge layer and topped it with thawed frozen cherries and a whole bag of cherry flavored M&M’s leftover from Valentine’s day (that pretty much gives you an idea how much candy I buy around the holidays if I still have some)
The bars turned over Ahh-mazing! I was a little worried the liquid from the cherries might make the bars super soft and hard to keep their shape, but once cooled they were easy to cut with a sharp knife.
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Curious about our monthly chocolate party? Here’s how you can join me and my wonderful hosts Emily of Life on Food, Veronica of My Catholic Kitchen, Pam of Blueberries and Blessings, Liz of That Skinny Chick can Bake, Kim of Ninja Baking, Denise of From Brazil to You , Laura of Tutti Dolci, Karen of Karen’s Kitchen Stories and Becky of A Calculated Whisk
Our recipes will be shared on the first Monday of each month and you can submit your own recipes by the end of the month. You can submit up to 3 recipes each month.
To make sure everyone is having fun, there are a few rules you’ll have to follow.
1.) Blog about your chocolate treat. Your recipe must include the two ingredients we choose. It can be a simple no bake treat or a sophisticated layer cake, the complexity level of the recipe is totally up to you.
2.) Include a link back to a monthly round-up or the Chocolate party page. Optionally, add the Chocolate Party logo in your blog post or on your sidebar.
3.) Your recipe must be published during the current month. Please do not link old recipes, they will be deleted.
I hope you’ll join our party and bake along with us. Also, if you’d like to know what are we up to and what ingredients we pick for the next parties, join our Facebook group.
All submitted posts will be pinned to the Chocolate party Pinterest board and will be promoted on other social media platforms using the #chocolateparty hashtag.
I’m imaging a tree filled with cherries and I like that image! Lovely cherry chocolate bars Roxana! Your recipes are so creative and tempting 😉
The recipe sound wonderufl and I’m sure we would love it, BUT, if I can’t find the cherry M&M’s, I’m done. I’ll just copy the recipe by hand. 🙁
Hi Donna,
I got all your three comments. I have the cherry M&M’s leftover from Valentine’s day (said that in the blog post) My advice would be to look at the candy isle at your grocery store. They have all kinds of M&M’s.
Roxana
Roxy, you rock! What a great group…Chocolate Party! And, such a fabulous way to create a chocolate cherry treat! I’m glad you faced your fears and added those cherries to these bars. Now we all know what to do when Valentine’s Day rolls around again…stock up on the cherry flavored M&Ms! 😉 xo
dessert looks fabulous lovely colourful combination
Love that you used M&M’s in there!
Oh look at that chocolate and cherry combo. Love that you added the M&Ms. Very decadent treat…one I would love to sample.
This looks so good, Roxana! I love how dense, rich, and fudgy they are. And that you used sweetened cond milk, too. My fave 🙂
Cherry season is the best! I love how rich and fudgy these bars are!
Such terrific brownies, Roxana! I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled for those cherry M & M’s!
Mouthwatering, Roxana!!! I want to the whole stack of bars for myself.
G’day! LOVE the flavor combination of chocolate and cherry, TRUE!
Your brownie looks SO delectable! I want one now too!
Cheers! Joanne
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Do you use the dark sweet or red tart cherries in this recipe?
Hi Carolyn,
I’ve used dark sweet cherries.
Roxana
These bars look delicious! Cherries and chocolate go well together!
What a beautiful tribute to your grandmother, Roxana. How idyllic and wonderful to have a cherry tree in full bloom to climb as a child =)
As always, your baked goodies look and sound divine!
P.s. Thank you for the intro to cherry flavored M & Ms.
Touching memories of your Grandma! Cherry season is just around the corner here (not locally grown — vendors who hawk their wares on street corners & in parking lots — love it!) Thanks for this cherry-laden chocolate treat.
Cherries and chocolate? Sounds heavenly! They look very decadent and rich.
So rich, fudgey and decedant! I have still yet to bake something for this month- life has been crazy and a non cherry lover this month is stumping me! Better get on it! :/
chocolate and cherry! Its the perfect ultimate combination! Love it
Ohhh chocolate and cherry – I love it! The wheels are turning in my head – can’t wait to make a recipe for this month.
xo Jackie
These look like something I could get into and quickly…YUM! I am not a big fan of chocolate dipped cherries, but I think these could make me change my mind about the chocolate and cherry combo
What a fabulous bar with great flavors! These look irresistible, Roxana!
I love how certain foods can take us back year in time Roxana! What sweet memories you have. Your cherry chocolate bars look heavenly! 🙂
What a lovely story. These bars sound amazing.
Roxana,
I had a cherry tree in the yard when I was growing up too. It had tart cherries until my uncle grafted a rainier cherry branch to it and then we got some sweet cherries. Hope you like my lofthouse cookies and thanks for hosting the party.
Annamaria
Ooo! I’ve never had cherry m&m’s! In fact, I’ve never even seen them. Now I need to hunt them down because these bars need to be made in my kitchen. Holy cow these look amazing! Love chocolate and cherry together.
Oh cool your own cherry tree at your grandma’s! These bars looks awesome and nice touch with the MnMs
These look delicious Roxana, I recently made brownies with strawberries and the addition of fruit was a great choice. I’ve just linked up my entry for this month’s chocolate party.
Oooh I love cherries too. Although a little less since living in a cherry orchard haha. But they’re still one of my favorites. These brownies look incredible!
Roxana, these bars are over the top decadent! I could dive right into those chocolatly cherry bars!
Well these look absolutely heavenly Roxana! Yum!
Roxana, these Cherry Chocolate bars look absolutely gorgeous. I have a problem, my children don’t like cherries and I was wondering if you could suggest another suitable fruit to use. I’ll definitely make the cherry ones for me & my husband. Any suggestions, please, Roxana? Thank you.
Hi Ursula,
I’m sure you can replace the cherries with berries, if you like.
Let me know how they turn out
Roxana