If you have a bag of frozen cherries and are wondering what to make out of it, look no further than this cherry ripe dessert.
Having been raised in Australia, I sure know what Cherry Ripe is! So when we recently got our hands on some Asiago frozen cherries from Whatsinstore, I knew a cherry ripe recipe was the right one for a dessert. Even more so considering Jonathan had never tasted cherry ripe before, whether it was cherry ripe bars or cherry ripe ice cream!
Cherry Ripe is actually one of Australia’s oldest chocolate bars and also one of the favourites. An Australian confectionery known as MacRobertson’s came up with this recipe in 1924. Eventually, in 1967, Cadbury acquired the confectionary and continued to manufacture this delicious treat under their own name.
I am not exactly sure why Cadbury decided not to distribute worldwide, but for sure most of us on the other side of the world would enjoy it. Over the years we found some smaller chocolate stores who sometimes have this chocolate bar in stock. Either way, this chocolate is not easily available to us in Malta. With that in mind and a good dose of nostalgia, I used some of the best frozen cherries I could get my hands on and resolved to make this cherry ripe dessert my own.
What makes this chocolate cherry ripe bar recipe work is the great combination of frozen cherries, coconut and dark chocolate. The end result is a very particular taste, a combination of sweet and bitter notes which complement each other perfectly. It is believed by some people that the Cadbury Cherry Ripe bar contains alcohol.
This is due to the residual taste and also due to the well-known rumour in Australia that eating several of these can increase alcohol levels on a breathalyzer, landing potential drivers in problems with the law if stopped by police.
However, Cherry Ripes do not contain any alcohol and the residual taste most likely presents itself due to the bitterness of the cherries. You could opt to add some alcohol to this recipe, but we opted not to do so ourselves to keep it as healthy as possible. If you do add alcohol though, please do let us know how it goes. We’d love to learn about the result!
What about frozen cherries nutrition wise? They are packed with nutrients, rich in antioxidants and with benefits to heart health. I tried to keep the recipe as healthy as possible. I focused mainly on the sweetness from the frozen cherries, without adding additional sugars to the recipe. As for chocolate, I opted for the dark chocolate type.
I made use of the deliciousness of frozen cherries, combined with raspberries, to give this bar the great cherry ripe flavour which we expected to taste. I know fresh may be better, but I preferred frozen cherries over fresh ones in this case because I rather enjoy the texture one get from processed frozen fruit. Besides, these frozen cherries are already pitted and overall very practical.
Apart from the taste, what we loved in particular about this cherry ripe dessert recipe is that it is Gluten Free. That means anyone who is gluten intolerant, can try a hand at it and enjoy it’s deliciousness! Although we used honey in this recipe, you can make this a vegan recipe by replacing the three tablespoons of honey with three tablespoons of vegan maple syrup.
Let’s dive into the actual recipe itself.
Ingredients:
200 g dark chocolate
180 g desiccated coconut
150 g frozen cherries
50 g frozen raspberries
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
Method
Blend half of the desiccated coconut with the honey, coconut oil and vanilla extract in your food processor. Place mixture in a bowl.
Blend the other half of the desiccated coconut with the frozen cherries, and raspberries in your food processor. Mix both mixtures together in the food processor and blend for a few more minutes.
Put baking paper in a tin (ours was a square 18cm tin) and move the mixture into the tin. Press down on the mixture on the baking paper to ensure it is firmly in place.
Freeze for one hour.
After one hour, cut the frozen mixture into 9 squares and place back in the freezer for at least one hour.
Melt the chocolate either by melting in a microwave or over a hub using the bain-marie method (bagnomaria).
Coat each cherry mixture square with melted chocolate. Freeze until ready for consumption. You can also store in the Fridge if you prefer.
For this recipe, I cut this mixture into squares. However, you are free to shape in any way you prefer. We would imagine that making cherry ripe balls can also be a nice alternative to this recipe. You might want to play around with the ratio of cherry mixture to the amount of chocolate. Usually I prefer if the cherry mixture is around 1-1.5cm and a thin layer of dark chocolate but really, it is up to you!
Let us know what you think about cherry ripe and frozen cherries. Do you like them? Have you ever tasted cherry ripe? If you try this recipe, and we hope you do, let us know the results!
Check out our other recipes using frozen fruits here.
