Chocolate Covered Cherries

Sofia Losure

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, there has never been a better time to make chocolate-covered cherries. Making them at home, whether as a gift or a V-Day party snack, is the perfect way to level up the holiday. This recipe, perfected by my Uncle Walt, has a few simple ingredients, is easy to make (by confectionery standards—a thermometer is helpful, and arguably vital, when tempering chocolate), and is delicious. This version contains a splash of almond extract, which blends excellently with the cherry and chocolate flavors–but customizing these cherries is gloriously easy, too.

Ingredients:

36 Maraschino cherries
⅓ cup butter
2 ¼ cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
⅛ teaspoon almond extract
2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Drain the cherries and blot them dry with paper towels.

2. Cream butter, sugar, milk, vanilla extract, and almond extract until you get a moldable fondant. If the mixture is too sticky, add more sugar.

3. Mold fondant around each cherry until completely covered–the fondant is sweet and packed full of flavor, so the amount you add determines the creaminess and sweetness of each piece.

4. Place covered cherries on a dish with wax paper. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

5. Set up a double boiler (a saucepan with simmering water over medium heat with a glass bowl set above it, ensuring that the glass bowl is not touching the water).

6. Melt 1.5 cups of the chocolate in the double boiler. Heat until the chocolate reaches 115 degrees—do NOT allow the chocolate to surpass 120 degrees, as it will become gritty.

7. Remove the melted chocolate from heat, and stir in the remaining 0.5 cup of chocolate chips. Keep stirring the mixture until its temperature drops to roughly 80 degrees.

8. Put the mixture back into the double boiler and heat until it reaches 85 degrees. This is the “working temperature” of tempered chocolate, and is what temp the chocolate should be at when you coat the cherries.

9. Place small drips of melted chocolate on wax paper as placeholders for the coated cherries. Placing a coated cherry onto a drip of chocolate ensures that the cherry ends up being fully coated.

10. Either using a toothpick or your preferred method of picking up cherries, coat each cherry in melted chocolate. I suggest rolling to coat and then removing excess chocolate. Set on the prepared drips.

11. Allow the cherries to cool and set. The cherries can be plated in small paper cups, or left standing alone.

12. Store in a cool location, but do not refrigerate. Allowing 7-14 days for the cherries to ripen will enhance their flavor. Enjoy!

Successful cherries will be smooth, shiny, and delightful bite-sized treats. They are an excellent vessel to celebrate Valentine’s Day with the person you love—or, alternatively, to fill the hole left by the lack thereof.