Thursday, December 10, 2015

Chocolate Covered Cherries


I made some Chocolate Covered Cherries this week.  I've been meaning to make them for a long time, but they are supposed to take two weeks to cure and get really tasty.

I'd think about making them a day or two before Christmas or Valentines Day and decide against it.

But I remembered this time, it's just over two weeks til Christmas, which means they'll have time to get all nice and gooey and tasty inside.

Here's the recipe and my how to's.
To start with you need a jar of Maraschino Cherries. 
 1 jar of Maraschino Cherries, drained, reserving the liquid
 Drain the cherries well, and place on a piece of paper towel to make sure most of the liquid is gone. They need to be quite dry for the next step.

 Next up, you need to make a basic fondant.  This isn't a true fondant, but it's close enough for this purpose.  The fondant covers the cherries before you put the chocolate over it all.
 16 oz. of chocolate, or chocolate bark.  I used some Semi-sweet and some Milk Chocolate
Recipe: Fondant 

2 -3 cups Confectioners sugar  (more if needed)

2 tablespoons softened butter
2-3 tablespoons Maraschino Cherry Juice**
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2 teaspoons golden or light Corn Syrup
Mix the butter, cherry juice, corn syrup and sugar together in the bowl of your kitchenaid or mixer.  Mix til well blended, then add the vanilla extract.   It should look fairly dry.
Dump out onto a pastry sheet and knead the mixture until it has combined and is smooth and elastic.   I ended up using over 3 cups of sugar, as it was fairly humid here.
Next up, cut or portion off the fondant into equal amounts, I rolled them into a ball, about the size of the cherries.

Pat each ball out into a circle, and place the cherry
in the middle of it, folding the fondant over the cherry


and sealing it. If you have excess fondant, pinch it off and set aside for another cherry.
  Continue until all of the cherries have been covered with the fondant.   Place the cherries into the fridge or freezer for a couple of hours to firm up.  I put mine in the freezer overnight.
Melt whichever kind of chocolate you like, I used some Semi-Sweet and some Milk Chocolate.

Dip the fondant covered cherries into the chocolate, and put into either a mini cupcake wrapper or onto a parchment paper, making sure that it is totally covered with Chocolate.  You don't want the cherry juice to escape as it starts its journey from fondant to cordial.








I had to cut into one of them so I could do a quality control taste test. 
 And then I had fun taking pictures.
They look so pretty, and yummy, and I'm seriously wondering if I can wait two more weeks...
I did say I had adventures.
I wanted to show how thin you should pat the circles of fondant out to wrap the cherries in. Well, seconds after taking this picture the fondant fell, to the floor, and became an offering to the kitchen goddess.
That didn't stop me though, I had lots of fondant left and I kept on until every cherry was covered in this pink stuff.



And talk about making a mess. sigh.
I found out that while toothpicks are good, a bamboo skewer worked better for poking into the cherries and dipping them into the chocolate.  I also used my silicone spatula to help mound the chocolate onto the cherries as I was dipping them.

All that effort will be worth it in just over a week, if I can wait that long.

Sidsel Munkholm - Author
Sidsel Munkholm - Author

Sid loves to cook, feed people and have fun in the kitchen. She shares her successes and the involuntary offerings she sometimes gives the kitchen goddess as well. And she's still looking for the mythical fairy to help her clean the kitchen after a marathon cooking session. Currently working on a cookbook showcasing the recipes from her Danish heritage.

4 comments:

  1. Perfect for the new Food on Friday, Sid! See you there! Cheers

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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