Chocolate Cherry Dessert Bites

These decadent Chocolate Cherry Dessert Bites are made with pure ingredients: just cocoa, maple, coconut oil, oats, almonds, and cherries!

This position was created in partnership with Northwest Cherry Growers. All opinions are ours.

OK, we get it. Valentine’s Day can be cheesy and over the top. On the other hand, it’s an excuse to eat delicious food with people you love! When I was growing up, my mom would decorate our house with red hearts and put Valentine’s Day on my bedroom door. Now that little Larson is in the picture, it gives Alex and I a whole new excuse to celebrate the holidays. These Chocolate Cherry Bites are a perfect dessert for Valentine’s Day: or any time of year really! They’re vegan and simply made with clean ingredients.

How to make Chocolate Cherry Dessert Bites

Inspired by this classic combination sweet cherries and chocolate, we set out to create a healthy vegan dessert that turned into these Chocolate Cherry Dessert Bites. Why vegan? We found you readers like vegan desserts even if you are not vegan yourself, which is also the case with us. Vegan desserts are also very versatile for serving all types of diets.

These Chocolate Cherry Dessert Bites are a rich, chocolaty dessert made with natural sweeteners and just a few whole foods! Here are our secrets for our chocolate cherry dessert:

• The crust is made from almonds, rolled oats, cocoa powder, coconut oil and maple syrup, mixed into crumbs and pressed into a muffin tin.
• The chocolate filling consists of only three ingredients: coconut oil, maple syrup and cocoa powder. It comes together in the creamiest liquid chocolate you’d swear you could get from dairy and refined sugar.
• The filling is chopped northwest sweet cherries, which are the perfect juicy, naturally sweet leaf with chocolatey richness.
• These ingredients make the dessert raw, not cooked, vegan, plant-based, gluten-free, dairy-free, and refined sugar-free. But don’t tell anyone because they’re usually delicious.

What are sweet cherries?

This Chocolate Cherry Dessert Bites recipe was created specifically for Northwest cherry growers with frozen sweet cherries. What are sweet cherries? Sweet cherries are cherries of a sweet variety that are usually eaten fresh. There are different varieties of sweet cherries; The most common is Bing. These fresh cherries are quite dark – sometimes almost purple or black. Montmorency tart cherries, also known as tart cherries, are bright red when picked and are typically eaten dried, frozen, or juiced.

Fresh Northwest sweet cherries are only available during the summer months, but frozen or dried cherries are a great alternative that allows you to enjoy the health benefits of cherries year-round. Cherries freeze easily, so if you like the recipe, try freezing some bags of fresh cherries next summer! It can bring you a little closer to the source of these delicious fruits.

Northwest Cherry Growers is a self-funded, self-governing grower organization established in 1947 to promote, educate and research a variety of stone fruit varieties grown in the region, particularly fresh sweet cherries. For more information on Northwest cherries and to learn more about the health benefits of cherries, visit NWcherries.com.

Health Benefits of Sweet Cherries

Sweet cherries are so delicious it’s not difficult to eat them: especially when they’re included in these Chocolate Cherry Dessert Bites! But here are some of the health benefits of sweet cherries:

• Sleep better with every bite: Studies show that cherries are a natural source of melatonin, which helps control your body’s internal clock and regulate your sleep patterns. Try eating cherries about an hour before bed to stabilize your sleep cycle.
• Secret Anti-Cancer Agents: A study by the USDA’s Western Human Nutrition Research Center suggests that cherries also have anti-cancer properties. Cherries contain ellagic acid, which appears to be a powerful inhibitor of cancer cell growth.
• Increased fiber intake: Many Americans are deficient in fiber, falling short of the 25 to 35 grams per day recommended by the USDA Dietary Guidelines. Eating cherries can help you meet the current dietary recommendation of two cups of fruit per day and may help maintain a healthy weight, prevent diabetes, and improve cardiovascular health.

Let us know if you try this Chocolate Cherry Bites recipe – we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Looking for more fruit desserts?

Aside from these chocolate cherry dessert bites, here are our favorite fruit desserts at A Couple Cooks:

This Chocolate Cherry Bites recipe is…

Raw, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, plant-based, dairy-free and naturally sweetened.

Looking for vegan desserts?

We love vegan desserts because they cater to customers with different diets. Aside from these chocolate cherry bites, here are some of our favorite vegan desserts:

Last update: January 2020