Back in the day of church cookbooks and fundraisers it was big deal to add your special secret recipe for the whole world to see. Well, back then it would have been just the people in your hometown, but still. These wonderful recipes live on today and thanks to the internet people from all over the world can share delicious recipes with each other in the blink of an eye.

That’s the case with Donna’s chocolate-covered cherries. A photo of the recipe was posted on Reddit and today we get to enjoy these treats without having to buy a bunch of old cookbooks. This particular recipe comes from a family cookbook from the 1990s.

This aren’t your standard chocolate cherries. These have the stem on, all that much easier to dunk into the chocolate coating. Now these stems can be loosely attached or fragile. And, if one or five of them should break off during the preparation then you pretty much have to stop and eat one. Hey, I don’t make the rules!

In all seriousness though, these cherries are much more delectable than the store-bought kind. The creme filling is actually more of an almond fondant. Unlike cordial cherries from the store this creme doesn’t ooze out when you bite into it. And, the stems act like little handles to further help keep your hands clean.

You’ll have to carefully wrap the creme paste around each cherry. To do this efficiently I found some food-safe gloves to be the most useful tool. You make a little ball of the creme then smash it into a pancake in your palm. Place a cherry onto the pancake and then cup your hand to release the creme onto the cherry. From there you’ll need to mold and pat the creme more evenly onto each cherry.

You won’t be able to make these perfectly round, but that’s ok since the chocolate covers it up.

It’s not a hard recipe, but it does take time to make them. It’s labor of love for sure! But, this is the sort of thing my mom would make around the holidays and it was always very much appreciated. Plus, these are much tastier than the ones you can buy in a little box from the store.

Once each of your cherries has a sweater on it’s time for their chocolate coats so to speak. The coating is made from dark chocolate and bit of coconut oil. The latter ingredient ensures that the chocolate remains smooth through the entire process.

I found that twirling each cherry very gently for about 5 seconds before placing them on the parchment paper meant there was less pooling under each cherry.

To make sure these set well let them cool in the refrigerator to harden before serving them. And there you have it! Some of the best cordial cherries you’ll ever have made right at home. If Donna was here I’d shake her hand.