Chocolate-covered Cherries½ cup butter, softened
¼ cup white corn syrup
4 cups powdered sugar
16 oz. maraschino cherries, well drained*
Semisweet chocolate chips
Crisco
I. Cover a large cookie sheet with wax paper. Set aside.
II. Prepare fondant. Mix butter, corn syrup and powdered sugar, kneading until it is creamy and well blended.
III. Pluck off a small piece of fondant, flatten it in the palm of your hand and wrap it around a cherry. Place the cherry on the cookie sheet. Repeat process until all cherries are wrapped.
IV. Set the cookie sheet in a cold place (freezer, refrigerator) to allow the fondant to firm up, about 15 minutes.
V. Melt chocolate chips with a small amount of Crisco, at a ratio of 1 cup of chips to 1 tablespoon of shortening. A small Crockpot works well for this. For years I've used Nestle semisweet chips. This year I also went the dark chocolate route. Hershey has its Special Dark in chips and there are Nestle and Ghirardelli dark (or bittersweet) chips, too.
VI. Dip the cherries, one a time, in the melted chocolate. Set each coated cherry back on the wax paper-covered cookie sheet. When the chocolate is firm, remove from the wax paper and store in a covered container in the refrigerator.
Voice of Experience:
I knead the sugar, butter and syrup in the bowl with my bare hands. Dampen your hands with water as needed to make it easier to work with the fondant. Cherries with the stems still attached make for a showier candy but cherries without stems are easier to dip. You will want at least 12 ounces of chocolate chips. Start with two cups of chocolate chips and 2 tablespoons of Crisco, adding additional chips if you can tell you will need them.
Recipe source: A newspaper cookbook, with reader recipes. The original recipe said to cut the cherries in half, if you can believe that. Use the whole cherry!
*I just made a batch today (November 2013) and I used almost all of a 28-ounce jar of cherries. I got 74 pieces of candy, with about 15 cherries left over.