I’ve been loving the summer fruits that are in season right now. But sometimes I go a little overboard at the grocery store and I can’t eat them fast enough, so they start to go bad. When that happens, the best option is to bake with them!

Today, my fruit was cherries. I had so many leftover and I couldn’t possible just eat them all. Baking with cherries is a little annoying because it takes some time to pit each one, but the effort it so worth it in the end!

I found this recipe for blondies from Averie Cooks (link here). If you’ve never had a blondie, it is essentially like a cookie cake. The name is a play on a brownie, but this is “blond” because there is no cocoa powder. I love blondies because they are typically lighter than a brownie and they are usually packed with lots of good ingredients.

This blondie recipe today used cherries and chocolate which is such a classic combination! This recipe uses semi sweet chocolate so it has some bitterness, and it helps to balance some of the sugar from the cherries and the blondie batter. Using milk or white chocolate here would have been sugar overload. Also, the ratio of batter to mix-ins is almost equal so every bite is jam packed.

Another thing that I love, which is common with blondies, is that they are usually a 1 bowl recipe, so they are easy to throw together. Aside from pitting the cherries, it takes about 10 minutes to get these blondies in the oven and they only take about 25 minutes to bake.

Because of the butter and brown sugar in the batter, your kichen will smell amazing while these are baking. They come out relatively soft so you have to resist the temptation and let them cool before cutting into it. But they are so soft inside but the edges get a little crispy. And then you get the gooey chocolate and the soft cherry, everything just works so well. This was a great dessert.