Fresh cherries are baked into these cherry revel bars for a decadent and dark fudgy cherry chocolate cookie bar that makes a batch big enough for a crowd!
Fresh cherries are a weakness of mine. My grandmother used to have several cherry trees and I can remember eating them right off the tree. I love to bake with fresh cherries, but they are expensive!
I like finding ways to enjoy fresh cherries that don’t call for a ton. These cherry revel bars use 2 cups of chopped fresh cherries. Plenty of fresh cherry flavor without that high price tag and the monotony of pitting a hundred cherries. Pitting cherries can be a chore, so utilizing a cherry pitter like this one available on Amazon might be a good choice for you if you’re nuts about fresh cherries. It makes the job so much quicker and easier.
What are revel bars?
A revel bar is a cookie bar that has a chewy crust with rolled oats topped with a fudgy chocolate filling. They are crispy, chewy, creamy, fudgy, chocolatey oatmeal bars. Trust me, it’s good stuff! Cherries and chocolate? That’s a combination that is hard to pass up.
My cherry revel bars are slightly different from my recipe for chocolate revel bars not only because of the addition of chopped sweet cherries, but also because dark chocolate is used for the chocolate layer. Dark chocolate and cherries, yes please! However, I should note, you can use whatever your preference is of chocolate chips in these. White chocolate and milk chocolate will work just fine too.
What do you need to make cherry revel bars?
- Butter
- Flour
- Brown sugar
- Eggs
- Vanilla
- Baking soda
- Rolled oats
- Dark chocolate chips
- Sweetened condensed milk
- Fresh sweet cherries
- Sugar
- Cornstarch
Looking for more recipes for dessert cookie bar combinations? I recommend these:
Cherry Revel Bars
Fresh cherries are baked into these cherry revel bars for a decadent and dark fudgy chocolate cookie bar that makes a batch big enough for a crowd!
Ingredients
- 1 cup salted butter, softened to room temp
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3 cups rolled oats
- 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 (12 ounce) bag dark chocolate chips, divided
- 2 Tablespoons butter
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups chopped fresh cherries
- 1 Tablespoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a 15 x10 x 1inch baking sheet with heavy duty foil.
- Start by preparing the crust. In a large mixing bowl, beat one cup of butter until light and fluffy. Add to this half the flour. Then add the brown sugar, eggs, 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and the baking soda. Beat this until it's well combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add in the remaining flour and stir well. Add in the oats and stir until combined. This dough will be very stiff. Set the mixture aside.
- Next make the chocolate filling. In a small saucepan, heat 1 1/2 cup chocolate chips, the can of sweetened condensed milk, and 2 tablespoons of butter over low heat, stirring often. Heat just until all the chocolate is melted, then remove from heat and stir in 2 teaspoons vanilla extract.
- In a small bowl, combine the chopped cherries with cornstarch and sugar.
- To assemble. Take about 3 1/2 cups of the crust dough and press it evenly into the bottom of the foil lined baking sheet. Then pour the chocolate filling over the top, and spread it evenly almost to each edge. Evenly spread the chopped cherries over the top. Drop the remaining dough by teaspoonfuls over the top of the chocolate layer and sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup chocolate chips.
- Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes or until the dough on top is lightly browned. (The chocolate layer will still look a little moist.) Cool in the pan on a wire rack. Remove from the pan, by gently pulling up the foil edges. Cut into bars and store in the fridge.
