Cherry and dark chocolate just works so well together – the rich bitter cacao and the tangy cherries are a combination made in heaven. These healthy 3 ingredient treats are full of nutrition without any added sugar.

A cherry almond healthy filling is covered in chocolate to make a bliss ball that is free of coconut and dates. Suitable for vegan, paleo, gluten free, refined sugar free and whole food plant based diets.

Use the type of dried cherries like look like raisins to make these healthy treats. These are usually sweetened with apple or pineapple juice rather than any refined sugar. Do not use glace cherries as they are about 50% sugar with preservatives, colourants and have little taste to them.

Dried cherries have a great balance of flavour being tart and tangy but also sweet. It’s hard to describe but if you haven’t tried dried cherries I do recommend getting some. They may look exactly the same as raisins and be 4 times the price but they do have 4 times the flavour.

Cherry Chocolate Bliss Balls Video

Play recipe on YouTube

These healthy cherry truffles are coloured just with the natural cherry colour. They look dark but blending with a light nut like almond dilutes the rich dark red to bring out an appetising pink colour.

You can make these cherry bliss balls nut-free by replacing the ground almonds with sunflower seeds or make with cashews instead. Saying that, just about any nut or seed will work well in these healthy cherry balls.

I’m using a bullet type blender to make the chocolate cherry balls as its so versatile, small and easy to clean. With ground almonds a small blender is enough to easily make this recipe.

You can see in the cherry truffles video recipe I blend untill it combines to form a ball. This is just when the almonds start to release their oils and the mixture combines together. The cherry almond dough It isn’t dry or crumbly at all.

Dried cherries have a great juicy and full of great flavour that works so well with dark chocolate.

I recommend using a very dark chocolate to make these healthy cherry balls full of nutrition from the high amount of antioxidants in cacao rich chocolate. I used an 84% Ecuadorian dark chocolate and with the sweetness from the cherries it isn’t bitter. Even if you find dark chocolate too bitter it works great here with a thin coating.

Make these cherry chocolate truffels raw by making you own raw chocolate. It’s easy to make raw chocolate by mixing 1/3 raw cacao powder, with 1/3 melted cacao butter and 1/3 sweetener such as maple syrup.

I’ve made this recipe with cranberries instead and it works really well also. Just remember to use cranberries that are sweetened in pineapple or apple juice rather than refined sugar as they are healthier.

Cranberries have a bitter tart taste that is similar to cherries and does also work well with dark chocolate. Although If I had a choice I would always make these chocolate bliss balls with cherries.

I melt 3/4 of my chocolate in a double boiler, then take off the heat and stir in the final 1/4 for easy tempering. This is an easy way to get chocolate to just the right temperature so that it has the glossy finish and snap. If chocolate is just heated in one go then the cacao butter and sugar structure do not set correctly making it not have the right texture and affects the flavour.

This is why cheap chocolate uses palm oil rather than coconut butter as palm oil doesn’t require the tricky tempering process. Always buy chocolate that is free of palm oil and only contains cacao and a natural sweetener.

If you like these healthy vegan treat balls check out my carrot cake truffles or my after dinner mint chocolate balls.

Make these Chrismas chocolate cranberry balls by replacing the cherries with dried cranberries. Use the type of cranberries that are sweetened with pineapple or apple juice rather than refined sugar as they are healthier.

Did you know that both cherries and almonds belong to the Rosaceae family so are related. This family also includes apricots, plums and peaches. Cherries originated in Asia in 70BC and the Romans bought them back to Europe.