Since the weekend is almost upon us I wanted to talk about a bigger project! I made these last weekend and it took more time than I expected so make sure you don’t start these late in the evening (like I did!)
Better Than Store Bought Chocolate Covered Cherries
The directions on the blog are a little sparse so there is a lot of room for interpretation, which I didn’t realize until the next morning when I was actually awake.
The ingredients are pretty straightforward. The directions say to combine the first 5 ingredients but does not specify HOW. Since there was butter and sweetened condensed milk I did it in a saucepan on the stove until it was warmed up and combined. I did not leave it on there for any amount of time, I just wanted everything melted together and mixed well.
Some of the powdered sugar did not break down completely so I think in the future I will probably sift it to keep out any lumps.
I poured the mixture into a bowl and put it in the fridge to cool as suggested.
Draining the cherries and laying them out on the pan was really simple but, remember to keep the juice! I drained them over a pyrex and set the just aside with the package of chocolate chips. The cherries that I was using did not have stems on them but if yours DO I have read that some people had problems with them popping off during the dipping process so I will let you decide if you want to leave them on or take them off.
These go in the freezer for an hour, so now you have time to get involved in something else and completely forget that you were doing something earlier. Maybe that just happens to me?
I did eventually remember to come back to these and got what I needed back on the counter. I went to scoop out some of the fondant and my spoon made a thunk against the top of the mixture. Eh? That can’t be right……
Yes, the mixture was incredibly hard and sort of crumbly. I wonder if this is because I heated it before I put it in the refrigerator? Does it just need to be mixed up like a dough? Anyone want to weigh in on this one, I have no idea.
The good news is that once I put it in my hand and worked it just the tiniest bit it softened right up.
I have to warn you that this part of the process is messy. I think I must have washed my hands 10 times because there is only so much sticky you can handle before you start to lose your mind.
I would love to find a different fondant to use for this part of the process that I could roll out and use a cookie cutter with. Doing this by hand made for some very uneven and thick coatings. Not that it turned out too badly but, these were a little overwhelmed by the fondant.
Once you get them all covered they go back into the freezer for another hour or so and you can once again forget about them.
Again, the directions were not very specific about the cherry juice to chocolate ratio so I dumped some in and called it good. I would like it noted for the record here that it was closing in on midnight around now and I was seriously dragging.
I don’t own a double boiler, which is weird since I have pretty much everything else in my kitchen. I don’t use one regularly so I rarely think about it. One of these days I will remember BEFORE I need it and pick one up. So, I used the microwave to melt the chocolate. If you do it this way, be very careful. I did 30 seconds at a time took the bowl out and stirred then put it back for another 30 seconds until it was all melted down.
Did I mention that they weren’t very specific about how much cherry juice to use? Also, they were not specific about what the actual texture of the chocolate should look like before you dipped it. Once again, I will remind you that it was late at night and my brain had already gone to bed.
I used a toothpick to dip these, which worked very well. However, I will warn you not to poke it in too far or it will be very difficult to get back out of the frozen cherries. I also went with their recommendation to do a few of these at a time so that they would stay frozen and make it easier to dip.
The problem was that my chocolate had not been thinned enough so it the weight of it would pull the cherry off the toothpick and I had to go digging for it. The excess chocolate was not as easy to get off as it should have been and I ran out with 6 fondant covered cherries left. Meh, I didn’t need those anyway. If my brain had been available it probably would have occurred to me to add more cherry juice to thin it down and make it easier but, well it was already in bed.
Ultimately I was not unhappy with the results. They look pretty darn good for something that I finished in the wee hours of the morning.
Practically professional grade! Ok, not really but if you leave me with my illusions I will leave you with yours.
By the time these came out of the refrigerator (1 hour) and were nice and set I didn’t have the energy to do anything more than throw them in a container (I did remember to use the parchment paper to separate the layers, Yay for me!) and go straight to bed.
I woke up the next morning with Chocolate Covered Cherries on my mind and immediately went to get one.
The fondant layer and the chocolate were way too thick, which does not completely detract from how tasty these are. You can only eat one of these…actually I could only get through a half of one. Although now that I have been through the process I have no doubt that the next batch will be even better.
At the end of the original blog post there is a note that if you let these sit for several days the insides will get even more gooey. Since this is Texas after a day on the counter, the chocolate exterior got a little too melty (Yes, even in the winter) and Joe asked me to put them back in the fridge. I have noticed a little more juice in the centers but I think that keeping them cold might stop the cherries from breaking down a bit and giving you that really yummy cherry goo in the center.
I will absolutely make these again with a few modifications that I learned this time around.
- Start earlier in the day, check.
- Set a timer to remind me to go back and do the next step, check.
- Thinner layers of fondant, check.
- More cherry juice in the chocolate, check.
Let me know what you guys think. I would love to hear any suggestions. Especially if you have a better fondant or a suggestion about how to make this one better!
The post These Should Come with a Warning! (Chocolate Covered Cherries) appeared first on The Involuntary Housewife.