Chocolate-Covered Cherries

Chocolate-Covered Cherries for Valentine's Day

My honey LOVES these. Store bought are just not the same. These are a surprise, so shhhhh, don't tell.

Ingredients:

• 2 jars of maraschino cherries, drained and dried on layers of paper towel (aprox. 60)
• 4 Tab. butter
• 4 Tab. light corn syrup or honey
• 3 c. or more of powdered sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 lbs. chocolate, either a mixture of dark and white chocolate chips or other quality  chocolate, melted.

Keep the drained cherries on paper towels drying while you work.

In a largish bowl:

Don't be afraid to use your hands.

Make CERTAIN that your cherries are nice and dry before the next step.
Even if you have to hand dry each one individually.

While cherries are getting firm you can melt the chocolate in a double boiler. If you are like me, who has NEVER owned a double boiler use a small saucepan sitting inside a larger pan with a small amount of almost boiling water. DO NOT let even one speck of water get in the chocolate. It will cause the chocolate to seize, which is sort of like when milk clots. Then all it will be good for is to pour out on waxed paper and chop up for putting in cookies.

You may have a few weepy ones when you take them out to dip, and that's okay. Storing in the fridge will keep them from getting too messy.

After they are all dipped and starting to harden, loosen them and see if the undersides are sealed with chocolate. If not put a little dollop of chocolate on the naked spots and let set. Store in the refrigerator for a week or so to ripen. That means they will get a little more gooey on the inside the longer you can hold out from eating them, but your family will wonder why you have a recent love affair with the fridge if you try to sneak in and snag one too often for taste testing just to "check and see if they are ready".

Better Than Lofthouse!

Sugar Cookies or Tea Cakes For Christmas or

Valentine's Day

Tea Cakes are better known as soft sugar cookies or shortbread to Americans.
Lofthouse is one store brand.

This old recipe has been passed down from mother to daughter for a very long time. Its origin is English-Scottish. Just in the last 150 years it was passed from my great-grandmother, Claudia Paxton-Parker to Edith Thelma Parker-Vinson to Betty June Brown to me and my sisters to our daughters. So I'd say these wonderful cake/cookies are quite the family tradition. I double the recipe for sharing and make them at Christmas time and often Valentine's Day too. Trees for Christmas, hearts for Valentine's. It's a big deal that I'm sharing this super wonderful family recipe with you,
so properly appreciate it. :)

Tea Cakes

• 2 eggs
• 2 c. sugar
• 1 c. butter (the real stuff)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. almond extract (I added this to the recipe)
• 1/2 c. buttermilk
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• approximately 5 c. flour

Cream together the eggs, sugar, butter and extracts until fluffy. Add buttermilk and mix. Mix together dry ingredients and add enough flour to have a workable dough. You'll be adding more when you roll out the dough, so be careful. Too much flour affects the taste. Chill the dough for an hour or more for best results, then roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface. Also, flour the top of the dough a little to prevent the rolling pin from sticking. Cut out using your favorite cookie cutters and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. At this point you may choose to brush the tops of the cookies with egg whites and sprinkle with colored sugar before baking if you don't intend on icing them after baking. Otherwise bake at 325 until just done. If you want them soft there's no need to brown them at all, just cook until set. My mom likes them brown and crispy, but that's not how to get the "Lofthouse" type softie cookie, that brown one is a coffee dunker!

We ice these wonderful cookies after they cool with a true butterceam type icing. No Crisco please!

My Buttercream Icing

• 1/2 c. softened butter
• 2 c. powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• desired flood coloring
• 2-4 tsp. milk, or more

Beat together the butter, sugar, coloring, and vanilla. It will be dry. Add the milk a little at a time beating until creamy and spreadable. Spread on the cookies and sprinkle with sprinkles or colored sugar, if desired, while the icing is still wet. This is a good kid job, getting the cookies sprinkled before the icing firms up. ENJOY!