Several weeks ago I was in ALDI and saw cans of tart cherries for sale. I love tart cherries, so I picked up two cans. They’ve been hanging out in my pantry waiting. I sometimes buy ingredients that I don’t have any recipe ideas for yet. They make good inspiration for new things.
Yesterday, I decided those cherries needed to meet up with a box of brownie mix and become a new slow cooker dessert. I had no idea if this would turn out like I hoped or not.
Then again, how can you go wrong with cherries and brownies?
The dessert turned out wonderful! The brownies are soft, but a bit more set than cobbler type desserts. The cherries taste bright next to the deep, chocolate flavor of the brownies. A creamy scoop of vanilla tops it all in a classic way.
Here’s what you’ll need:
If you can’t find tart cherries, you can use cherry pie filling. You won’t need to add the sugar and cornstarch to them. Cherry pie filling will likely taste a bit sweeter than the tart cherries, but will still be good.
Slow Cooker Brownies and Cherries
Ingredients
- 1 Brownie Mix for a 9x13 pan
- 2 eggs
- 2/3 cup oil
- 1/4 cup cherry juice from tart cherry can or water
- 2 cans pitted tart cherries
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 Tbs. cornstarch
- vanilla ice cream optional
Instructions
- Stir brownie mix, eggs, oil and cherry juice together in a bowl by hand.
- In a separate bowl, stir cherries with juice, sugar and cornstarch together.
- Spray inside of crock with cooking spray.
- Pour cherries into crock.
- Top with brownie batter.
- Cook on high 3 hours.
- Serve warm with ice cream, if desired.
This is a recipe in our Slow Cooker Desserts series. Click the photo to see them all.
So if I use cherry pie filling, what would use in place of the cherry juice? water?
Yes, water would be in place of the cherry juice.
making this dessert tonight! Excited
Is cornstarch absolutely necessary
It’s for thickening the sauce. You could use flour or even tapioca instead. Or leave it out, but it will be thin and juicy.
I used flour. This dessert was a huge sucess the whole family loved! Thank you!
So if I use can pie filling do I eliminate the sugar and cornstarch?
Yes, that’s right.
Can I use stevia and/or monk fruit in the place of sugar? Any idea how this might affect texture?
I pretty much stick with regular sugar on dessert and have not tried this with either stevia or monk fruit! ANy of our other readers have much experience with these sweeteners?
which size crock-pot
did you use? I am guessing my 4 qt should do, but did want to ask.
A 4-quart slow cooker should work just fine!
I was wondering if you have an oven version of this recipe?? Or if an oven would change the outcome of the current recipe.
IF I am using frozen tart cherries, how many ounces/ cups do I use and how much juice?
Merry – I checked with Tiffany on this one and she said you’ll definitely need to sweeten and thicken the cherries. A can is 14.5 ounces, but I’m not quite sure how much of that is cherry and how much is liquid. I would go ahead and do the thickening/sweetening & measure out the ounces. I’m curious to how you like it that way with the more tart cherries than the sweet ones, and we would love to know how it turns out!!