A Chocolate Covered Cherry Holiday

I love chocolate! I love cherries! And I don’t need a class to make these wonderful, yet simple, chocolate covered cherries. I’m about to share my process in hopes you too will try to make your own holiday chocolates.

Supplies and ingredients for roughly 20 treats.

Luxardo cherries and a bit of the syrup they are packaged in. Meijer sells the cherries in the drink mixers aisle as well as the local liquor store. These are the real deal and while expensive, they make all the difference between a truly special candy and a generic syrupy trashcan-dy of those dyed red atrocities! Seriously

Vanilla – 1/4 tsp

Honey – 1 tbsp

Chocolate chips for melting – roughly one bag

Plastic/ silicone candy molds

Double broiler (fancy way to say a pot of hot water with a bowl nestled on top for the chocolate melting processes)

Flat cake spatula

Melt the chocolate in a double broiler. Go slow in the double broiler and just get it melted, don’t burn it. If you have never melted chocolate you should know that it can burn fast and when it does it gets a funky texture. Another good tip is to take a cake batter spatula and fold it in scraping the bottom of the bowl the entire time. The chocolate will turn liquid pretty quick. When it happens, turn off the heat and work really fast. I find the tiny chips melt faster.

Lightly warm the cherries, stirring in a sauce pan with the vanilla, some of the cherry syrup juice and the honey until the liquid parts are all the same consistency. If the mixture is too runny whisk in a teaspoon of corn starch to thicken.

Coat your molds with a thin layer of the melted chocolate. You can do this with a small spoon, a brush or your clean finger. Then add a single cherry with a little of the sauce. Last top it off with more melted chocolate. Then tap each mold on the counter to settle the candies.

Stick them in the freezer for 30 minutes or so. This makes them super easy to pop out of the molds and quickly gets them into your mouth.

Don’t be afraid to give this recipe a try, although, I can’t be responsible when you eat to many and feel ill. These babies are rich and bursting with cherry flavor.