Chocolate Covered Cherries Are Easy To Make!
Before I ever realized that Chocolate Covered Cherries Are Easy To Make, I loved them! Who could believe that the sweet liquid surrounding the cherry in that shell of chocolate could be made at home? Who even knew what that sweet liquid was?
Each year at Christmas, our school bus driver, Zola, would give us each a box of chocolate covered cherries as we walked off the bus for winter break. Those are my first memories of chocolate covered cherries.
We lived ten miles out of town and back a quarter of a mile private drive. My mother would leave for work before the four of us had to catch the bus. Zola knew this and a few times, she blew the horn and waited for us! We would run like crazy down that quarter of a mile and pile into the bus. We never missed the bus! What a great bus driver she was and what a great treat those cherries were!
A few years ago, a fellow employee, at the bank where I worked, told me she and her mother would make chocolate covered cherries every Christmas. What? She had my attention!
Am I the only one who thought those were made by some companies that had highly guarded secrets and special equipment to make these tasty morsels? Did you also think that the liquid was probably injected into those chocolate shells with some special syringe?
Anyway, I asked for the recipe and she shared it gladly. Her recipe, below, included paraffin to melt together with the chocolate, making the chocolate firmer and shinier, which can be omitted if that bothers you.
Chocolate Covered Cherries
10 oz. Maraschino Cherries with Stems - drained (24 cherries) 3 Tblsp. Melted Butter 2 Tblsp. Light Corn Syrup 2 Tblsp. Half and Half 2-1/2 cups Powdered Sugar 2 cups Chocolate Chips *1 cup White Chocolate Chips (to drizzle over the chocolate covered cherries, if desired.) 1/2 Bar of Paraffin
Remove the cherries from the jar, dab with paper towels and set on paper towels to continue drying.
Meanwhile, stir the butter, corn syrup, half-and-half, and powdered sugar into a dough.
Place in the freezer for a few minutes. (Put back in the freezer if necessary to firm up for making a ball.)
Take about a teaspoon of the dough and form it into a ball. Use extra powdered sugar to keep the dough from sticking to your hands.
The secret to doing this is to keep the dough cold and moving. Quickly, shape the ball and flatten. When the dough sits on your hands too long, it warms and begins to stick to your hands.
Smash the ball into a flat round and press around and completely cover the cherry.
Place covered cherries on wax paper lined sheet pan. Place the dough-wrapped cherries into the freezer for 1-hour.
Meanwhile, melt the chocolate and paraffin over a double boiler.
Holding the stems, dip the dough wrapped cherries into the melted chocolate.
Tip - After dipping, hold the dipped cherry for a minute, which allows the chocolate to harden and will result in less puddling when you set the cherry on the wax paper.
Place on sheet pan lined with wax paper.
*Refrigerate the chocolate covered cherries for 20 minutes.
If desired, carefully drizzle melted white chocolate over the chocolate covered cherries.
Store in the refrigerator and serve cold. These can also be frozen for longer storage.
The recipe says that the inside around the cherry will liquefy and be best in a few days or a week or so. Right! Like these won't be gone in a flash! Unfortunately, my family will never know if this is true...
Hopefully, they last overnight because my plan is to use some of them to decorate a birthday cake for Sophia. Don't you love those 'drip' cakes all over Pinterest now? Well, my plan is to make one of those with chocolate ganache drips of course. Just imagine these chocolate cherries on top!
Sophia is going to be delighted.
Maybe these will inspire you to make some of your own! Wouldn't these be great for Valentine's Day? Yes, and they would be even more special because they are homemade. These Chocolate Covered Cherries Are Easy To Make!
