Chocolate Covered Cherries

A few weeks ago I was at Sam's loading up on all of our nonperishable stuff when I saw this giant jar of cherries. I threw them in the cart and thought it would be a fun and simple Valentine treat to cover them in chocolate.

Once I started looking at recipes, I realized it wasn't going to be as easy as I thought, but they did turn out tasty. Here is the recipe I used:

Ingredients
60 maraschino cherries with stems
3 tablespoons butter, softened
3 tablespoons corn syrup
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 pound chocolate confectioners' coating

Directions
1.Drain cherries and set on paper towels to dry.
2.In a medium bowl, combine butter and corn syrup until smooth. Stir in confectioners' sugar and knead to form a dough. Chill to stiffen if necessary. Wrap each cherry in about 1 teaspoon of dough. Chill until firm.
3.Melt confectioners' coating in a heavy saucepan over low heat. Dip each cherry in by its stem, and place on waxed paper lined sheets. Chill until completely set. Store in an airtight container in a cool place. Best after 1 or 2 weeks.

I didn't know that you had to coat the cherries in dough before the chocolate would stick well, but now I know. And it was a time consuming process. Here are a few pictures from the process and a few things I learned along the way.

I had a wonderful assistant. This is key. He tested my cherries for me and gave me the ok to use them.



Then we rinsed and set all the cherries out to dry. This was also a good project for my helper.



Don't they look yummy just by themselves? But, trust me, they get better!



I don't have many pictures of the next few steps. But here is what I remember. I made the dough and found that it was helpful to chill it for a couple of hours before using. I used a teaspoon measuring cup and scooped out balls of the dough. Then I used the bottom of a glass cup to flatten each ball. Next I wrapped each cherry in the flattened dough. It took a bit, but it got easier with each cherry. I chilled the wrapped cherries for a few hours before dipping in chocolate.

I used a double boiler for the chocolate and it worked great at keeping the chocolate a nice soft texture the entire time I was dipping.



The finished product:



The recipe said to let these sit a week or two before eating. I made them last Wednesday and have tasted one or two along the way to see the difference in waiting. I must say, the cherry I had last night was the best so far. The inside started to liquify and it all just kind of melted in my mouth. Definitely yummy.

I found these cute miniature gift boxes and Carter helped deliver some yummy Valentines yesterday.



Wish I could share these with all of you!