How To: Barkeater Chocolates Cherry Chic BBQ Sauce

I was sitting here with a cherry-chocolate bar from Barkeater Chocolates. Could I have just eaten it? Of course, it’s delicious, but instead, I decided to take it a step further and have it with dinner.

I love Barkeater Chocolates. Those peanut butter cups that they make have some added bit of delicious, I can’t even explain it. Recently, I stopped by their store in North Creek and picked up a bunch of different bars that I wanted to try. One of the bars that interested me was their “Cherry Chic” bar. I love cherry and chocolate together but cherry and chocolate are also great ingredients in savory dishes too, so I figured I’d give cooking with it a try.

The first thing I thought of was BBQ sauce. I’ve had some really great BBQ sauces with a touch of cherry and BBQ sauce isn’t hard to put together so this bar felt perfect for that. I decided to take a recipe for basic BBQ sauce and just decided to add the chocolate to taste (spoiler: I love chocolate, I used the whole bar).

I made the recipe with skinless, boneless chicken breasts but you use whatever protein and spice mix you choose. I added some extra spices as a dry rub to the chicken but, again, you do what feels (and tastes) right.

The ingredients you’ll need for the BBQ sauce:

• 1/4 cup of ketchup (I used Heinz)
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of packed brown sugar
• CHOCOLATE!

To melt the chocolate, there are two ways to go about it. You can use a double boiler where you boil water and melt the chocolate in a separate pan in that water so to heat up the chocolate without burning it. That is the best method, I didn’t do the best method. When I was cooking, I was already starving so I just broke it into small pieces and microwaved it until it was all melty and added it to the other ingredients. After they’re all mixed together, ta daa you have Barkeater Chocolates Cherry Chic BBQ Sauce.

You still want me to finish the recipe? Okay!

I used a dry rub on my chicken with 1 1/2 teaspoons of smoked paprika and 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground cumin. If you want a sauce more like a glaze, the chocolate bar is gonna stop that and make it thicker. Less chocolate, more runny sauce. After that, I covered the chicken, threw it in the air fryer for 10min at 375 and then ate a delicious dinner.