A delicious, sweet Cheese ball filled with Maraschino Cherries and mini Chocolate Chips! Perfect for Valentine’s Day!!
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I’m obsessed with maraschino cherries. Always have been! Actually my whole family is obsessed with those sweet cherries.
As I planned out some new Valentine’s Day treats, cherries always came to mind. If you scroll to the end of this post, you will see some of the delicious cherry flavored treats I’ve shared in the past!
Some people are crazy about peanut butter, or chocolate, or even mint…for me, it’s cherries. Sweet red maraschino cherries. I seriously snack on them right out of the jar!
This dip is incredibly easy to make. You can serve it one of two ways. Whip it up, don’t coat it in mini chocolate chips, and just serve immediately in a bowl with crackers, pretzels, fruit, etc. OR, if you have a little time, make it the night before allowing it to firm up some so it can be rolled in mini chocolate chips. It’s still soft, but presentable!!
How to make a Cherry Chocolate Chip Cheese Ball
In a large mixing bowl, beat your softened butter and cream cheese until fluffy. Add in powdered sugar and some of the maraschino cherry juice. Beat until fully blended.
Fold in chopped maraschino cherries and mini chocolate chips.
Line a bowl with plastic wrap, drop your mixture into the bowl and bring up the sides of the plastic wrap to cover the top. Refrigerate several hours or overnight. When ready to serve, remove plastic wrap and invert cheese ball onto a plate. Press remaining mini chocolate chips around the top.
Or, serve in a bowl immediately and enjoy!
What to serve with sweet cheese balls
We love sweet cheese balls. And here’s where you can come up with lots of serving ideas.
Graham Crackers
Animal Crackers
Apple Slices
Pretzels
Cinnamon Sugar Pita Chips
What else would you use as a dipper?
Love CHERRY desserts? Here are a few of my favorites…
Cherry Chocolate Chip Shortbread Cookies: great use for those maraschino cherries!!
Thumbprint Cookies with Cherry Buttercream…these melt in your mouth!
Cherry Fudge with Dark Chocolate: this is a hit every time I make it!
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Cherry Chocolate Chip Cheeseball
A delicious, sweet Cheese ball filled with Maraschino Cherries and mini Chocolate Chips!
Ingredients
- 8oz cream cheese, softened
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ¼ cup maraschino cherry juice
- 2 ¼ cup powdered sugar
- ¼ cup chopped maraschino cherries
- 1 cup mini chocolate chips, divided
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and butter until combined. Add cherry juice and powdered sugar until fully blended. Fold in chopped cherries and ½ cup mini chocolate chips.
- At this point you can either serve immediately...or continue on to make as a cheeseball. For the cheeseball, line a rounded bowl with plastic wrap. Pour mixture into bowl, bringing up sides of plastic wrap to cover the top. Refrigerate overnight.
- When ready to serve, invert cheeseball onto serving plate and press remaining ½ cup mini chips into the cheeseball. Serve with graham crackers, animal cookies, apple slices, pretzels, etc!!
Notes
- Having made this several times, it occasionally comes out too soft to set up. I have yet to figure out the rhyme or reason why sometimes it's soft, and sometimes it sets up fine. When it it too soft, rolling it in chocolate chips does help! Or putting it in a bowl and serving as a dip works too!
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
12Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 272Total Fat: 15gSaturated Fat: 9gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 5gCholesterol: 29mgSodium: 74mgCarbohydrates: 36gFiber: 1gSugar: 34gProtein: 2g
Recipe originally published January 19, 2014
This sounds sooooo good! I am going to make this for a thanksgiving gathering along with a ‘real’ cheese ball! 😉 I was thinking those thin chocolate wafer cookies would be an awesome dipper. And sugar cookies. Lawd have mercy.
I tried this cheese ball today. I read what you said about it sometimes coming out to soft. I myself added a bit more confectionery sugar and just a Tablespoon at a time of the cherry juice. 1/4 cup is too much. Also made sure I dried the chopped cherries well. Tasted like it was missing something so I added a 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract. Perfect . The consistency seemed perfect. Chilling it now so I can form it into a ball. Thanks for sharing!
*Liquidy
So liquid! It’s in fridge now, but have a feeling it’ll just be dip and no cheeseball after seeing these comments. That’s ok though. Maybe only a tsp or 2 of cherry juice instead of 1/4 cup? When I make salty Cheeseballs, it’s just cream cheese, toppings, and a little Worcester sauce(around a tablespoon), so maybe it’s just too much liquid…
OMG!!! This looks super delicious!! You can never go wrong with any kind of cheeseball especially when its chocolate ?
I had high hopes for this one. In the end, it was not really a cheese ball as much as it was basically creme cheese icing with cherries in it. Ended up being a dip for us.
Will modify accordingly in the future.
I used this dip as a filling between layers of chocolate cream cheese poundcake. Yummy! Thank you for sharing your recipe.
Oh, that sounds heavenly 🙂
I’m hoping to make this next weekend for a women’s retreat dessert. If I make it with raspberries, what do I do for the juice? HELP!
CHERRY-MINT CHOCOLATE a burst of cherry zest both are great flavour
This is an awesome idea! Thanks so much for sharing the recipe! I can’t wait to try it.
I just finished making this for a Christmas lunch tomorrow. Sad to say it just turned into what looks like frosting. Nothing remotely cheese BALL like at all.
PEPPERMINT CHOCOLATE This is pure delight for your taste buds.
CHERRY-MINT CHOCOLATE a burst of cherry zest
Both are great flavour
I just wanted to let you know that I love looking at all of your recipes that you post. I tried the cherry cheese ball one this weekend and it was super good. At first I tried it with gram crackers which were good but I am not a huge fan a gram crackers so my dad had a great idea to try it on a bagel which i must say was the best idea ever. It was so good and what a good way to have a super good snack or even breakfast. I am going to try the cherry fudge next because I am addicted to this cherry flavor.
I think I’m going to have to make this dairy free! My boys and I love cherries but the homemade ones are the best. Yes, we make our own maraschino cherries. Yes it takes three days but they are so good it’s worth it.
I had no idea you can make your own!! What a fun thing to do 🙂