Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies. They taste as good as they look.

I'm sort of obsessed with cherries and chocolate together.  Sadly, this is not usually a year-round staple.  It seems difficult to find this deliciousness at any time of the year except Christmas, and Valentine's Day, if you're lucky.  So I take full advantage.  If you saw my Chocolate Covered Brandy Cherries recipe last week, you might think this is just a tired re-do.  Not so.  They have a taste all their own, and it's a delight...

WHAT YOU NEED:

1/2 cup rum, brandy, whisky, or your liquor of choice.  For once, I don't think beer would be appropriate, though.

1 10 oz jar maraschino cherries

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup white sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup semisweet or dark chocolate chips

WHAT YOU DO:

Open the cherries, dump out the juice, and pour the liquor you chose in the jar.  Reseal it and let it sit.  The longer the better.  1 hour = not good.  3 hours = ok. 1 day = the best.

After the cherries have soaked, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Cream the butter and sugar together.  Add the egg and vanilla and continue beating until starts to get fluffy.  Next, add the flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda, and baking powder and mix until the flour is incorporated.  The batter should be stiff.  If not, continue adding flour 1 tablespoon at a time until the dough can be rolled into balls.

Roll the dough into walnut-sized balls and place on a cookie sheet.  Use your thumb to make an indention in each one.  

Drain the cherries, but keep the juice.  Don't dry the cherries - a little extra juice is a good thing.  Put a cherry in each cookie indention, and bake for 9-10 minutes.

Put the sweetened condensed milk and chocolate chips in a bowl.  Microwave 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between, until the chips are melted.  Add in 3-4 tablespoons of the reserved liquor and mix until it's smooth.  

At this point, you have some options.  You can either melt it a little more and drizzle some over each cookie, or allow it to sit a few minutes and harden, then put it into a pastry bag and pipe over the baked and cooled cookies (I did the latter).  It really doesn't matter, just so you get some of the yummy goodness on each cookie.

This cookie tastes as good as it looks.  I'm not known for my pretty food, but these are definitely the exception.

Try not to eat them all at once.