Mmm. Cherry. Chocolate. These thick, cakey, delicious Cherry Chocolate Brownies whip up in a snap!

Today I am joining up with some friends to share a quick Valentine’s Day treat. Once you’ve read about my tasty dessert, scroll on down to check out the other recipes featured!

This Valentine’s Day is the first with my super-sweet boyfriend and I am really looking forward to it. I really wanted to create a treat, just for him and started experimenting with cherry chocolate about a month ago. Can I be honest? The first recipe I created was for cookies. TOTAL flop. After my cookie fail, I spent 30 minutes talking it over on the phone with my mom and a day later these cherry chocolate brownies were born.

I know a lot of people turn to a box mix when making brownies…I don’t. First, I can NEVER get them to turn out as they should (it’s a serious baking fail). Second, it’s really not hard at all to make your brownies from scratch. Really!

Cherry Chocolate Brownies

The ingredients in this recipe are all easy to find. I actually had everything on hand (even when developing this recipe meant two takes!). Most of the items are household staples outside of the maraschino cherries, which I had on hand following a whirlwind love affair with ice cream sundaes.

In a large bowl, combine most of the dry ingredients. The flour, cocoa powder, baking powder…

Honestly, this recipe comes together so easily that even though I love my bright orange KitchAid, I didn’t break out more than a whisk.

In a second bowl, combine the sugar and most of the wet ingredients. Once the the bowl is mixed to a nice bright yellow, creamy consistency add it to the bowl with dry ingredients.

The last step is my favorite. In the end, you add the cherries. Seeing the bright pop of red against the dark chocolate batter nearly made my heart skip a beat. It’s just sooo pretty, isn’t it? I mean, it looks absolutely sinful and delicious!

You’ll want to use a 9×13 casserole dish or baking pan with this one – makes sure you grease it all the way up the side. This will rise to a nice THICK cake-like bar. Mmmm. Yummm.

I drizzled my cherry chocolate brownies with red candy melt from a Wilton melting pouch. Have you seen these? Small single recipe sized pouches that are already to go in the microwave? Genius!!!

Biting into this cherry chocolate brownie is fantastic, because you get small bits of soft cherry in every bite. So fun!