This beautiful and delicious chocolate cherry mousse is no-cook and easy to make, and it’s completely dairy free and gluten free. It’s creamy and flavorful, and one of our favorite mousse recipes so far!
If you’re craving a cool and creamy dessert that isn’t ice cream this summer, you definitely need to make a batch of our beautifully layered chocolate cherry mousse. It’s completely dairy free and gluten free!
We have several dairy free mousse recipes, and I think this cherry chocolate one is our best one so far. It’s decadent and flavorful, it’s a delicious dessert for summer, but it would also make a wonderful Valentine’s Day treat.
Why we love this recipe
This layered mousse is so pretty, and it’s very easy to make, no cooking required. It’s creamy, airy, and fruity, with just the right combination of sweet and tart.
Since our recipe is low prep and can be made ahead, and it makes a fairly large batch, this mousse is a perfect treat for parties as well.
How to make dairy free chocolate cherry mousse
Here are the steps to make our chocolate cherry mousse. This is just an overview of the steps, the full recipe is at the end of the post.
- Make sure that your dairy free heavy whipping cream is fully chilled ahead of time (this helps it whip better).
- In a large bowl, add the dairy free heavy whipping cream, 1 ½ cup of the powdered sugar, the vanilla, the cream of tartar, and a dash of salt and beat with a hand mixer with a whisk attachment until mixed well and stiff peaks form.
- Divide the whipped cream in half and add half to a separate medium-sized bowl. We will flavor half of this whipped cream chocolate and the other half cherry.
- For the chocolate mousse layer, add the cocoa powder and an additional 1/4 cup powdered sugar to one bowl of the whipped cream and beat/whip until mixed.
- Cover the bowl and set aside in the fridge while you prepare the cherry mousse.
- Put the freeze dried tart cherries in a small blender or food processor and process into powder. It’s fine if there are some bigger pieces, but you’ll want it to be mostly fine powder.
- Add the cherry powder to the other half of the whipped cream and whisk until mixed.
- Add the chocolate mousse to a piping bag and the cherry mousse to a different piping bag and pipe into the 6 cups, dividing evenly between the 6 cups and alternating the chocolate and cherry layers until all the mousse is used.
- You can serve these immediately if you want, but for if you want a true mousse texture, cover and chill for 2 or more hours to set up and thicken.
- Garnish with a fresh cherry and serve.
These servings are pretty generous since this makes quite a large batch, so you can make more servings with this recipe (like 8 servings) in smaller cups. You can even make shooter-sized desserts if you want smaller desserts with fewer calories.
Dairy free heavy whipping cream options
*I used the Trader Joe’s brand vegan heavy whipping cream in this recipe, but the Silk heavy cream will also work. The Country Crock plant cream will probably also work in this recipe if it whips up well (I haven’t tried that brand yet).
- Trader Joe’s vegan heavy whipping cream alternative (appears to be discontinued now)
- Country Crock dairy free heavy whipped cream
- Silk dairy free heavy cream
- Califia dairy free heavy whip substitute
Can I make this recipe lower in sugar?
For a lower sugar version of this dessert, you can use a powdered sugar alternative like powdered Swerve or similar in place of the powdered sugar.
I haven’t tried using any powdered sugar substitutes in this recipe, so I am not sure how it would turn out. But it should work well if it’s a powder-based sugar sub, I don’t know how a liquid sugar substitute (like Stevia drops) would do in this recipe.
Check out our other dairy free mousse recipes!
- Paleo Layered Fruit Mousse
- Dairy Free Strawberry Mousse
- Creamy Vegan Lemon Mousse
- Vegan Chocolate Mousse
Dairy Free Chocolate Cherry Mousse (Gluten Free)
Ingredients
- 1 carton (16 oz) dairy free heavy whipping cream* chilled
- 1 ¾ cup powdered sugar, divided
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon cream of tartar
- Dash salt
- ¼ cup cocoa powder
- ⅓ cup + 1-2 Tablespoons tart cherry powder from freeze dried tart cherries** (you'll need about 2.4 ounces of freeze dried tart cherries)
- 6 fresh cherries, for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Fully chill your dairy free heavy whipping cream in the fridge.
- In a large bowl, add the dairy free heavy whipping cream, 1 ½ cup of the powdered sugar, the vanilla, the cream of tartar, and the dash of salt and beat with a hand mixer with a whisk attachment until mixed well and stiff peaks form.
- Divide the whipped cream in half and add half to a separate medium-sized bowl. We will flavor half of this whipped cream with chocolate and the other half with cherry.
- For the chocolate mousse layer, add the cocoa powder and an additional 1/4 cup powdered sugar to one bowl of the whipped cream and whip until mixed. Set aside.
- Put the freeze dried tart cherries in a small blender or food processor and process into powder.
- Add the cherry powder to the other half of the whipped cream and whisk until mixed.
- Add the chocolate mousse to a piping bag and the cherry mousse to a different piping bag and pipe into the 6 cups, dividing evenly between the 6 cups and alternating the chocolate and cherry layers until all the mousse is used.
- Cover and chill for 2 or more hours to set up and thicken.
- Garnish with a fresh cherry and serve.
Notes
Nutrition
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Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie which she founded in 2011. Sarah is based in Wyoming and has been managing food allergies for herself and her 2 children for over 20 years. Sarah was also a certified personal trainer for 12 years, as well as a group fitness instructor, health coach, running coach, and fitness nutrition specialist.
This sounds delicious, would Trader Joe’s coconut cream work for the cream?
I think the coconut cream would probably work, another good option is the Silk heavy whipping cream or the Country Crock plant whipping cream, both of those whip up and would be good alternatives. The coconut cream would probably work, too, but I would be more dense than fluffy I think.