Chocolate Cherry Brownies

STOP! Before starting this recipe, go eat a Hershey kiss. Wait, you're making this because you are out of Hershey kisses and you have a major chocolate craving and it's been a few long days teaching undergrads so you are seeking some sanity in the kitchen and the heat wave has you determined not to go back out to the grocery store? Well then, prepare to eat the gritty, chocolaty, sugary mix about 1/2 way through using your finger. I warned you. (Oh and read the whole thing including the "What I'd Do Differently" section before starting)

I cooked this in a cupcake pan (in an attempt to control myself and not eat it all today), so this recipe makes 6 brownies-in-a-cupcake-pan. It might make more if you don't eat so much of it in the gritty,chocolaty, sugary mix stage :)

You'll need:

8 fresh cherries, pitted, and diced

5 Tbsp unsalted butter

just under 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

just over 1/2 cup white sugar

2 Tbsp powdered sugar

1/4 tsp salt (I don't even measure this, I just too some in my palm then in the bowl)

splash of vanilla

1 egg

1/4 cup flour

Fill a small sauce pan 1/2 way with water. Cover with a heat safe bowl. Put butter in the bowl and let it begin to warm. Stir in cocoa powder, sugars, and salt. Continue stirring as butter melts and mix ingredients. This is the gritty sugary chocolaty mix I kept eating with my finger. Let this get warm-hot (where you stop eating it with your finger), then remove from water and cool. Add vanilla. Then add and stir in egg. (Don't do this when the mix is too hot, I think you'd end up with chocolate scrambled eggs). The mix should turn more glossy and smooth. Stir in flour, then add diced cherries and continue stirring until ingredients are all combined. Bake in cupcake pans (or not, any brownie-type pan will be fine) at 325 degrees for about 20 minutes. Note: my cherries were pretty dry. If you are adding in a bunch of cherry juice, you may need to add more flour. The cherry flavor is minimal (or missing, see below), but this totally hits the spot for chocolate!

Things I'd do differently: I would use only powdered sugar, replacing the granulated sugar with powdered. Also, the cherry flavor did not come through much, so I would either leave the cherry pieces bigger or pick different cherries. I used California cherries, but something more tart would have been nice with the very rich chocolate. You could aways swap the cherries for some other brownie mix-in.