A Pretty Cookie

This last Saturday at the cookie party I went to there was a cookie disaster. One of the ladies had found a recipe in her local paper for a chocolate covered cherry cookie. It had actually won a contest and was the featured recipe for the contest. They looked really pretty in the picture, and I could easily see why she wanted to make this cookie. But when mixing the dough together- following the directions precisely from the paper, something was amiss. The ratio of wet to dry ingredients was way off, and there was no way the dough, as written in the paper, was going to come together to make cookies of any kind. So a few of us made suggestions to salvage, and by adding more butter, another egg, and some milk, she had a dough to work with. The cookies turned out well, and I filed away the idea to research the cookie further at a later date and find out exactly what went wrong.

Yesterday after the kids went to bed, I curled up with a cup of tea and a new-to-me magazine, Home Cooking. Imagine how surprised I was to find the exact recipe for Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies on the pages of a brand new issue of a magazine! I pulled out the recipe that we'd used on Saturday and compared the two, to find that the difference between them was 1/2 cup of cocoa. The one in the paper called for a full cup- the one in the magazine called for 1/2 a cup. That made sense to me, and scanning the ingredients, I knew I'd be trying this one soon to compare.

So here it is. I thought the flavor was pretty good, but that the almond flavor really didn't come through as much as it could. So to make up for that, I whipped up a quick glaze with some powdered sugar, maraschino cherry juice, and food coloring to make a pretty drizzle for the cookies. The drizzle is what took them over the top. They will definitely be on my cookie trays this year- if only because they are stunning to look at. The flavor is good too- but I think it could use a little added oomph. I like them enough to try playing with them in the near future, but in the meantime, these babies are very pretty and will add a lot to any cookie platter over the next week or so. I've re-named them Cherry Cordial Cookies just because I like the name better.

Cherry Cordial Cookies
1/2 cup butter -- softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 jar maraschino cherries,whole -- drained, juice reserved
6 ounces chocolate chips
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

In a large mixing bowl, beat together butter and sugar until well combined. Mix in egg and vanilla.

Add flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Gently mix in until combined.

Roll bits of dough into 1-inch balls and place 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press down in the center of each ball with your thumb to make a small indentation.

Place one drained cherry in each of the indentations.

In a small saucepan, combine the chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk, and 2 tablespoons of the reserved cherry juice. Melt over medium low heat, stirring constantly until well blended.

Drizzle 1 teaspoon of the chocolate sauce over each of the cherries.

Bake cookies in a 350ºF oven for 12-13 minutes. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for 1 minute before removing to a baking rack to cool completely.

If desired, drizzle cookies with a glaze made from powdered sugar, cherry juice, and red food coloring.

Makes about 40 cookies.