Chocolate Covered Cherry, Cranberry, Cashew Clusters

 

I am having dinner with my friends Virginia and Dan tonight and when I offered to bring dessert I knew that creating something that involved chocolate was a priority—it's Valentine's Day after all, and Virginia doesn't consider non-chocolate things to be dessert.

I wanted to keep things simple, but also making something delicious, and after seeing this peanut butter cup post last week, I decided to do an easier version of that. I simply melted a combination of dark and semi-sweet chocolate (which totaled about a standard chip bag full) over a double boiler on the stove. Meanwhile, I lined 9 muffin cups with paper liners and filled them with an assortment of dried Bing cherries, dried cranberries and cashews (salted would have been yummy, but mine were plain). I then spooned the melted chocolate over the fruit and nuts. I sprinkled some raw sugar on top for a bit of sparkle and let them set for about a half hour in the fridge.

We enjoyed these last night for dessert and let me tell you, so much deliciousness for so little effort! I brought 6 of them with me to NYC from Des Moines this morning and am already looking forward to dinner tonight, and planning to make these again (and again) in the very near future.