Chocolate Covered Cherry Day - January 3rd

January 3rd is Chocolate Covered Cherry Day! I do love them... and they're fairly easy to make. Older chocolate candy recipes often contain paraffin to help in hardening chocolate and keep them glossy. You can use food grade paraffin in these old recipes (but be sure the it is food grade), OR you can use properly tempered chocolate. If you'd like to update the old family recipe, you can include instructions for tempering the chocolate in the recipe notes.

You can eat it, but do you want to?

Another delicious way to enjoy chocolate covered cherries is with my mom's recipe for chocolate covered cherry cookies.

Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies

Ingredients:
1 1/2 C. flour

1/2 C. cocoa

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 C. margarine

1 C. sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

10 oz. jar maraschino cherries

1 C. semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 C. sweetened condensed milk

2 tsp. maraschino cherry juice

Directions: Sift together the first six ingredients. Cream margarine and sugar; add egg and vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture; beat until well blended. Shape into 1" balls, place on cookie sheet, and press center with thumb. Drain the cherries, reserving juice. Put a cherry in the depression. Heat chocolate chips and milk until chocolate melts; stir in juice. Spoon a tsp. of this over the cherry, covering it. Bake at 350ºF for 10 minutes.

Available at Amazon.