Chocolate Cherry Blossoms

Well, I was thrilled when I found this recipe.  I am always looking for new cookie recipes this time of the year, and it just isn't Christmas without Chocolate Covered Cherries.  Yum, yum! 

I got my trusty mac book ready with the recipe!

Of course, most good cookie recipes start with butter.  I do sometimes use shortening but typically I prefer butter.  This recipe claimed to be "vegan" because it has no eggs, but really since it has butter it's not vegan.  It also has milk chocolate.  Surely delicious, but surely not vegan.  :)

I love my matryoshka doll measuring spoons!

Gotta chop up those yummy, yummy cherries!

This recipe called for powdered sugar which was another unusual cookie ingredient.  I got all of my measurements together before I made the cookies so that I wouldn't make the same mistake I made in the chocolate peanut butter cookies! 

The inspiration for these cookies are these cherry Hershey kisses - delish!

Gotta add in some cherry juice for flavor, and to add a beautiful pink hue to the cookies.

I was very happy to use my fancy William Sonoma almond extract.

This batter turned out so pretty that I just had to keep taking pictures.

These are rolled cookies - the recipe suggests regular sugar but I decided to use superfine sugar for an extra kick.

The recipe suggests pressing the cookies a bit, but I was skeptical.  However, she was right!

 I realize that I haven't actually shown any baked cookies since I've been freezing them.  But I do make one or two cookies just to try them out to make sure they're not poison.  :D

While Steve describes these as, "not his favorite," I actually enjoyed them quite a bit.