These Cherry Ripe Chocolate bars have been a long time coming. A reader of mine requested I made his favourite chocolate treat from back home (Australia). But being the high achiever that I am and wanting that extra bit of a challenge I thought I’d make them so that I could eat them too…oh, and other dairy free people too (how rude!).
I ordered a Cherry Ripe Chocolate bar from Amazon in the name of research and it’s hands down the longest a chocolate bar as delicious as this has lasted in my company! Now I’m not typically a chocolate lover, I’m more of a gummy sweets and jelly beans kinda girl but you combine coconut and cherries and I’m in heaven.
The downside was that these bars are not cheap to purchase over here in the UK so as I say, I only bought one. This meant cutting the bar into as many tiny pieces possible so I could keep tasting it to see how my recipe development progressed. That’s right ladies and gents; I ate a chocolate bar with milk in it so that I got the perfect match for flavour.
Now that is dedication…dedication and a swollen tummy to boot!
There were a few attempts and fails along the way, I say fails they all tasted lovely, but not quite the real thing. I did make the previous bars with an added few drops of red food colouring. For this final version I’ve actually opted to go for the au natural look and not added colouring. The Cadbury’s Cherry Ripe Chocolate Bar does in fact have added colour and we do eat with our eyes so if your familiar with the bar and want the whole chocolatey experience you’ll probably want to consider adding the colour, or close your eyes and eat it, I’m not going to judge you!
So here’s the recipe, I hope I did the real thing justice Alexander?
Other Chocolate Treat Recipes you will love
I have a few chocolate treats on the website now so why not check out this recipe for Finest Cherry Brandy Truffles; gluten free and vegan, and then there’s my Brandy & Chocolate Truffles and if you want a show stopper how about this Divine Gluten Free Salted Chocolate Tart
Oh and while I think of it, if anyone else has a favourite they’d love me to attempt to recreate then feel free to drop a comment below or email me [email protected] and I’ll give it my best shot, for example, I’ve also managed to create a gluten and dairy free Double Decker chocolate bar too
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Cherry Ripe Bar Recipe
Cherry Ripe Chocolate Bars; gluten and dairy free
Ingredients
- 180 g glacé cherries
- 100 g desiccated coconut
- 80 g coconut flour
- 40 g condensed milk if making dairy free use natures charm or make your own – see notes
- 20 g coconut oil
- 3-4 tsp cherry flavouring I use a coffee syrup – link at bottom of page
- 250 g dark chocolate
- 1-2 drops of red food colouring (this is optional the original bar has added colour, my version is naturally a mid-pink so a little lighter
Instructions
- If making your own condensed milk [see notes] you need to add 30mins boiling time and cooling time to the overall recipe timings.
- In a food processor add the glace cherries, coconut flour, condensed milk, coconut oil and cherry flavouring, blitz until combined.
- Scrape the sides of the processor and add the desiccated coconut (you want to keep the bits so don’t blitz to a smooth paste) blitz for a few seconds at a time until thoroughly incorporated.
- Line a small baking tray or rectangular dish with grease proof paper (I use a 1/4 sized baking tray, perfect for making 5 chocolate bars).
- Spoon the cherry and coconut mixture into the tray and smooth down into all the corners evenly with the back of a spoon, this can get a bit sticky so I keep my spoon dipped in water.
- Melt just under half of your chocolate and pour over the flattened cherry and coconut mix – this will be the bottom side of your Cherry Bliss Chocolate Bars. Pop into the fridge for 30mins or until the chocolate has set.
- Once set remove from fridge and gently run a knife around the edged to free the block, turn out onto a flat surface and carefully cut into fifths.
- Leave the bars to warm a little to room temperate (this will make adding the last lay of chocolate easier).
- In the meantime melt the remaining chocolate and pour over each bar (one at a time) and using the back of a spoon or smooth side of a knife tease the chocolate to the edge of the bar to cover all your cherry and coconut filling.
- Decorate the top with a swirl of your spoon or use a fork to create lines…it’s entirely up to you.
- Return to the fridge and chill until completely set.
- Store in fridge to keep for longer, these will last for a couple of weeks – yeah right, they’ll last an hour!
Notes
Nutrition
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Rebecca you STAR!
Wait wait, who the heck is Alexander and do I have to arm-wrestle him to claim credit for inspiring you to create this wonderful recipe? :-P
Thank you so very very much. There are quite a lot of homemade Cherry Ripe recipes out there but most or all rely on freezing the coconut mixture which means the result is not at all authentic. Some are not gluten free. I think yours might nail these things and be the very best! You might just make me and lots of Ozzie expats very happy people!
I will be trying and reporting back soonest Rebecca. I cannot even sample the actual Cherry Ripes anymore (as a Coeliac) but I have willing taste testers who can help me with that problem. I also have the ambition to properly temper the chocolate having recently bought a very simple tempering kit yet to be used.
Expect me back . . . with pictures! :-)
Haha, I was in giggles reading this … I’ve changed the name … maybe you should have been called Alexander! I answer to Rachel now, I’ve been called it so often :-D
They look amazing!
Thank you :-)