Chocolate Cherry Meringue Cookies are chewy inside with a crisp outside, luscious chocolate and tart cherries mixed throughout the meringue help makes these a festive treat.
These Chocolate Cherry Meringue Cookies are like biting into one of the crispy-ist yet chewy-ist fudgy-ist chocolaty-ist cookie ever!
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Meringues
If you’ve never had Meringue Cookies, you’re in for a really special treat!
The outside of these Meringue Cookies gets crisp, while the center is soft and chewy.
These cookies are filled with rich chocolate flavor (some of that comes from the Semi-Sweet Morsels), which just makes them melt in your mouth!
Cherry and chocolate are such a wonderful combination for the holidays too.
How to make
Besides the new flavor and texture, you’ll notice that meringues have a different baking method than you may be used to.
These bake in a low oven for a couple hours, then you turn the oven off and leave them to cool for a little while. Easy peasy!
I’ve even left them in the oven (with the oven off), and gone to bed. They cool over night.
I like to mix these Meringue Cookies so that they have pretty streaks of white and dark. So they have some variety and texture. Don’t worry if you have little bits that aren’t all mixed in, just get most everything mixed but still leave some streaks.
You can also pipe these meringues out using a pastry bag, but you really don’t have to go to that trouble.
I like the free form look of them. My husband said they reminded him of molten lava, in how they have different colors and textures and look like they are flowing. I agree.
So, don’t bother piping them out. They are super fun this way, and Santa will be really happy to get these on his cookie plate!
I make my meringues with a tablespoon or soup spoon so that they are a little larger, about 3 bites worth. You can also make them smaller with teaspoons.
The large size yields about 30-32 cookies (um, I may have lost count of the cookies as I ate, er I mean, photoed them!). The smaller size yields about 48 cookies.
Cherry Recipes
Cherries are such a wonderful summertime fruit. If you need more cherries in your life, check out these delicious cherry recipes. You’ll love them!
- Cherry Bread with Dark Chocolate Glaze
- Yogurt Cherry Cloud Pie with Granola Crust
- Cherry Scotch Sipper
- Lime Cherry Jam
- Cherry Balsamic Glazed Salmon
- Double Cherry Popsicles
- Cherry Lambic Granita
What kind of cocoa to use?
For these little Chocolate Cherry Meringue Cookies I recommend using Dutch-Process Cocoa instead of regular unsweetened cocoa.
Dutch-process cocoa (or European-style cocoa) has been treated with alkali to yield a deeper, neutral, less acidic, and mellower flavor than natural or unsweetened cocoa.
Want to read more about the difference between Dutch-process and natural.
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Chocolate Cherry Meringue Cookies Recipe
Chocolate Cherry Meringue Cookies
Ingredients
- ¼ cup slivered almonds
- 1 cup sugar divided use
- 5 tablespoons Dutch-process cocoa powder
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- ¼ cup dried cherries chopped
- ½ cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
- 4 large egg whites
- ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Spread almonds on a baking sheet, and bake until lightly toasted, about10 minutes. Let cool.
- Reduce the oven temperature to 200° F. Line 2 large baking sheets with Silpats or parchment paper.
- Place the toasted almonds and 1/3 cup of sugar in the bowl of a food processor, and pulse until finely chopped. Add cocoa and cornstarch and pulse just until mixed. Transfer cocoa almond mixture to a medium bowl, and stir in chopped dried cherries and Chocolate Chips until just combined.
- In a large bowl, beat egg whites with an electric mixer on low speed just until frothy. Add cream of tartar, and increase the mixer speed to medium, and beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 2/3 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, beating until the whites form firm but still moist peaks. Add vanilla extract, and beat just until blended.
- Gently fold the cocoa mixture into the beaten whites in 2 additions, just until blended.
- Using two spoons, drop the batter by heaping teaspoon fulls onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing the cookies 1-inch apart.
- Bake, using both oven racks, for 1 ½ hours at 200° F, alternate the position of the pans and rotate back to front halfway through baking time. Turn off the oven and let the meringues cool in the oven for 1 hour, then peel them off the Silpat or parchment paper.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations, and should be considered estimates. Actual nutritional content will vary based on brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes, and more.
Those look like a fantastic cookie, my daughter loves meringues!!
Chocolate and cherry is such a delicious combination. I have never had a meringue cookie though – they look really god.
This reminds me it’s been a while since I’ve had a meringue, I think I need to make these soon.
These cookies are absolutely fantastic!! I love meringue but never had them as a cookie 🙂
I would so love to try one of these right now Debi.
Meringues are the quintessential Passover cookie as they are made without wheat and leavening. And yours with their beautiful streaking, addition of dried cherries and Nestles chocolate chips will look lovely on my seder dessert table!
My favorite cookies when I was younger was meringue cookies but until now I haven’t tried making them! Now I am glad I have the most delicious blueprint to follow! Love to have a bite on these yummy chocolate laden cookies!
Such a perfect holiday treat!! I could gobble them up!!
Yum!!! Haven’t made meringues in a while but will be trying these!!
Found you at Try a Bite Tuesday
yum. great twist on a classic.
These cookies look amazing with the chocolate and cherries.
Chocolate, cherry and almonds make a great combination and am sure these cookies tastes delicious!
I’ve never made meringues but have a friend who ADORES them—i’ll need to make him this recipe!
Can’t go wrong with chocolate and cherry!
they look scrumptious!
These are the best looking meringue cookies! Love NESTLE products.
Love cherries and chocolate together…they are a great combo! These look delicious, Debi!
Oh WOW. I’ve never had meringue cookies before but they sound diving! Especially with that extra cherry flavour 🙂
Chocolate and cherry match perfectly!
I might just have to learn to bake. 🙂