Cherry Chocolate Chip Blondie Bars

This Inspiration…

One of my favorite things about Summer is that it is also cherry season. I absolutely love fresh cherries and usually have a big bowl on the counter all Summer long. A few years ago, I started to incorporate cherries into more recipes. They are great in salads or in a summer fruit crisp. I wanted to get a little more adventurous and see how they would be in other baked goods. I found the winning recipe with these Cherry Chocolate Chip Blondies. A chewy, caramelly blondie loaded with chocolate chips and fresh chunks of cherries. They are divine. I could likely eat a whole pan in I allowed myself to do so.

The base of these is a very simple Blondie recipe. Butter, brown sugar, egg, vanilla and flour. I mixed it up a little by adding in some miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips, and some pitted and quartered cherries. They are a little tart, a little sweet, a little chewy, and a lot of delicious.

Start by preparing your cherries. You will need about 1 cup of quartered cherries. The way I like to prepare them is to pick off the stem, run a paring knife from the hole where the stem was, down the side and under the cherry, and up to the stem hole again. Twist the two halves to separate, kind of like how you twist open an Oreo. One side will have the pit in it, which you can pop out with the knife, your fingers, or a spoon. Then slice each half of the cherry in half again. The cherry juice can stain your fingers, so you can always wear gloves to keep that from happening.

Once the cherries are prepped, you can mix up the blondie base. Mix together your melted butter and brown sugar until well combined. Add in an egg and the vanilla. Stir to combine. Then incorporate your flour and salt. Once you have that combined, you can add in your chocolate chips and cherries. I like to use the mini morsels in this recipe so that there is a little chocolate in every bite.

Mix these in so that they are well incorporated. Then spread the batter into a parchment lined 8x8 pan. Spray the parchment with cooking spray prior to adding the batter. Bake at 350 degrees for 29 minutes, or until the edges slightly pull away from the pan. They will be golden brown. Allow these to cool for at least an hour before slicing into them. This will ensure that they set up and give you that nice caramelly chew that makes these so irresistable!

When you’re ready to slice them, lift the parchment out of the pan and lay on a cutting board. Slice into 16 pieces. Try not to eat them all yourself!