Recipe - Double-Dipped Chocolate-Covered Cherries

2 Bottles maraschine cherries
With stems
One half Recipe fondant (follows this
Recipe) flavored with Grand
Marnier or kirsch
Cornstarch
12 ounce Dark couverture or compound
Chocolate

Drain the cherries and pat as dry as possible with paper toweling,
then place them on a candy or cake rack covered with paper toweling
and allow them to dry for at least 24 hours. Cover a cookie sheet
with wax paper.

Place a small pile of cornstarch on the counter and have handy a bowl
of water and paper towels for wiping your hands. With
cornstarchdipped fingers, pull off a small portion of fondant,
flatten it a bit, and pat and wrap it around the cherry. (Be careful
to leave the stem intact, but if it falls off, simply stick it back
down into the cherry and the chocolate will eventually hold it in
place.

Place the fruit on the cookie sheet. Continue covering fruit in this
manner. The cherries will need to be chocolate coated no later than 45
minutes after being covered in fondant, or the fondant will begin to
melt. It is best not to do too many at once.

Melt the chocolate. For the most professional job, place cherries
upside down, with their stems hanging downthrough the wires of the
rack. Press the fondant into a rounded shape if necessary, then coat
the bottom halves of the cherries by brushing them with thick
chocolate. Place the rack in the refrigerator for 5 minutes to harden
chocolate.

Place wax paper on a baking sheet. Turn the cherries right side up on
the rack. Place a fork under a cherry and dip the fruit in the
chocolate. Place cherries on the paper lined baking sheet.
Refrigerate the tray briefly.

To doubledip the cherries, spoon chocolate over the upright cherries
and swirl the chocolate around the step in a pretty whisp of a
patter. Then take a pastry brush and coat the stems with chocolate.
When chocolate is hard place cherries in a covered container and keep
in a cool place for 2 weeks to mellow. At the end of thi time, the
fondant will have melted and transformed itself into a liquor.

Basic Fondant