Chocolate Covered Cherries

[Whispering Winds]

Here they are. The recipe is about as simple as can be, but I add more powdered sugar because it makes a stiffer dough and a LOT easier to work with.

1 stick of soft butter
1 can eagle brand milk
vanilla or almond extract (1 tsp)
powdered sugar
3 jars of marashino cherries, very well drained

Mix all together, except the cherries. I add about 6-8 cups of the PS, and I think the recipe asks for 4, but that makes such a soft nougat you will lose your cool trying to form them. Cover and chill overnight.

For the cherries, I drain mine in a colander for about a week, covered. They get "dry and sort of hard" to the touch, but they are so much easier to work with and put them in an airtights container in a cool dark place for at least a week. They "season" and form some more juice and are just luscious. It only takes a small amount, about a thimble size piece to form around the cherry. Keep a small bowl of powdered sugar and dip your fingers and even the nougat in it to help form the ball. When you get a little build up of the PS on your palm, you will see what I mean and be able to shape them effortlessly. You will not be able to get them perfect, that is just impossible unless you have experience with candy making, but the boo-boo's ar great, because you can taste test them!!!

Place on wax paper, makes removal easier.

When you get the balls formed, cover with saran wrap and put in the fridge for overnight or at least several hours. Dip in melted chocolate chips (1 bag) to 1/2 cake of paraffin. Use a pan you can keep the remainder in, because you probably won't use it all. You can add to it as needed, and I use a fork to dip but a toothpick works great too. Work fast!

I also add coconut to this dough, and make coconut balls. The ideas are endless.

My picture is not the best, new camera and I am having trouble using it, but you can see what they look like.

 

[bigmike&nan]

While in my last quarter at Chef School I spent a couple weeks working in a candy kitchen - one night three of us made chocolate covered cherries (with a little brandy instead of vanilla extract). These were for our weekly Friday Night All You Can Eat Gourmet Buffet - to which every production kitchen in the school contributed mightily. We had a large sheet pan of fondant made and used the cherries with the string thingie. Grab some fondant and form it into a circle, then place the cherry in the center and wrap and squeeze gently the fondant around the cherry. Repeat until you have done about 300 of them. Then chill them for an hour in the fridge and then dip in the melted chocolate. We let ours sit in the candy kitchen (a temperature and humidity controlled room) for 5 days before they were served. The fondant melts so when the customer bites into there is the liquid filling (From the juice of the cherry liquifying the fondant). Soooo good. By the end of that two weeks my blood sugar was so off the charts I can't describe it. We had access to speed racks filled with sheet pans of all kinds of special confections and you could take as many of any of them as you liked... Chef Elizabeth's pecan caramels were amazing.

Here is a video of pretty much how we did them.
Oh, did I say DON'T WIPE YOUR HANDS on your clothes, apron or towels while doing the fondant around the cherries. That uniform, apron and all my side towels were pretty much toast from that exercise...