chocolate covered cherry cookies.

Let me tell you a story. One time when I was little (around 9 or 10), I remember going to the drug store with my parents and my little brother. It was after we had went out to dinner. A lot of times, we would go to the drug store and we would all get our favorite candy bar. (I always got either a Carmello or Mallow Cups. Um, yum.)

But this particular time, I specifically remember that we bought chocolate covered cherries. When we got home, my mom and dad sat in the dining room watching TV and my brother and I went into the living room to watch the VHS we had just rented. (VHS? Rented? Throwback.)


What did we rent, you ask? I remember it was You're Invited to Mary Kate & Ashley's Sleepover. Don't judge me, I liked them all and had them all on VHS back in the day. (Read: I may or may not have still watched Holiday in the Sun and Passport to Paris and When in Rome and all of the others well into my high school years. Okay, honestly I would totally watch one now. As in tonight. I'll have to check Netflix.)

ANYWAYS. That night, my brother and I opened the box of chocolate covered cherries and put them on the counter between the kitchen and the living room. For the rest of the night, we watched Mary Kate & Ashley (he may deny this part), played Chutes and Ladders (he may deny this part as well), and ate most of the box of chocolate covered cherries. Ok, I don't even know if he LIKED chocolate covered cherries. I just remember that I ate them that night.


Why is it that something as trivial as a drug store dessert can bring back a night that happened so long ago so vividly? So weird. I will never be able to eat a chocolate covered cherry without thinking of Mary Kate & Ashley or Chutes and Ladders. Whodathunkit.

Really, none of that has to do with these cookies (except that they have both chocolate and a cherry in them). Which are fantastic, by the way. D's mom made them around Christmas time last year and I fell in love with them.

With one bite, they immediately jumped into my top 5 favorite Christmas cookies of all time. Since my family always makes quite a lengthy list of cookies every year, that is quite a big deal. 

Make them. I implore you. They will complete you.


Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies

recipe from Allrecipes.com

 1/2 cup butter (at room temperature)

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 (10 oz) jar maraschino cherries (strained, reserve cherry juice)

4 tsp cherry juice (from above)

1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

With an electric mixer (bowl or hand-held), beat together the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla and beat well. Add the flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, and baking powder and mix until smooth. Roll into 1-inch balls and place onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Using the end of a kitchen utensil (I used the end of a whisk) or your thumb, make an indent into each cookie large enough to place a cherry. Place a cherry in each indentation. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes.

While the cookies are baking, combine the sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, and cherry juice in a sauce pan. Heat over low to medium heat stirring constantly until smooth. When the cookies come out of the oven, spoon about a tablespoon of the melted chocolate onto the top of each cookie (so that the cherry is completely covered). If you felt like being fancy, you could drizzle the chocolate over the cookies instead of spooning it over them... but who doesn't love more chocolate? That's what I thought.