I've been experimenting with how to make chocolate covered cherries for a couple years now. I'm getting better at it, but still get a lot of them leaking the juice from inside. I thought I'd write about what I've learned to date, to record what I've learned and for the benefit of anybody else interested in the topic. I should say that I have no training in chocolate work, so some of my mistakes may seem amateurish - they are. But, I believe amateurs should be able to do cool things and I've tried to learn how to do it with an eye to how a hobbyist would go about it.
Chocolate cherries are made by surrounding the cherry with fondant, and then enrobing that in chocolate. The fondant liquifies inside the chocolate, partly by dissolving in the liquid that comes with the cherry, and partly with the help of the enzyme invertase (an optional ingredient), which converts the sugar into a more soluble form. There are a couple major ways to encase the cherries in fondant:
- Wrap a piece of fondant, a little smaller than the size of the cherry itself, around the cherry, then dip into chocolate.
- Melt the fondant, thin with a little cherry juice or liquor, dip the cherry in it, let it harden, then enrobe in chocolate. There are a few variations on this approach:
- Melt the fondant to 160 °F, dip the cherry in it, then let it harden on wax paper.
- Melt the fondant to 160 °F, and pour it over the cherry in starch molds.
- Melt the fondant to 85 °F, and pour it over the cherry in a chocolate shell.
Because the cherry is essentially dipped twice, once in fondant and once in chocolate, it takes quite a bit of time to do this. Chocolate cherries are therefore a labour of love. I think hand-dipped cherries really are special, and have focused on doing that. However, if I were ever to do this in a production setting, I would probably opt for shell molding (2c).
The first difficulty I had was just in learning to temper chocolate properly - and keep its temper. I've finally gotten reasonably good at this, though I rely on a thermometer as I can't "feel" the temper yet, they way I can with properly kneaded bread for instance. There are a lot of good resources on chocolate tempering (and a lot of confusing ones); I hope eventually to write up my own take on it.
Aside from tempering issues, the main problem I've had with cherries is they leak (90% of my batch usually). There are three types of leaks I've observed:
- When lifting the cherry after the chocolate has hardened, there's a hole or thin spot at the bottom. This happens because the cherry is heavy and sinks down before the chocolate sets, even though it started with a good coating.
- The cherry may spring point leaks elsewhere on the surface, sometimes soon after the chocolate sets and sometimes after a while. I think the main cause of this is that imperfections in the fondant covering (e.g., a little spike of melted fondant that sets in shape) cause the chocolate in that area to be thinner and weaker.
- A large crack develops after the chocolate has set, opening a type of "scab" ready to peel away. I've come to the conclusion that the chocolate contracts when setting (as it's supposed to do if it's well tempered), and creates pressure on the sugar filling, which tries to erupt out if it can.
The first problem is addressed by a technique called "bottoming". This puts on a pre-set bottom that the cherry won't fall through. There are two ways to do this I've found. One is to roll the cherry in the hands with a small amount of chocolate until it's covered, then let it set. I'm not well practiced at this but found it hard to get an even coat or set without a "foot" that would interfere with later dipping. The other approach is to place the cherry on a pre-formed chocolate disk the width of the cherry. Dip carefully and make sure to deposit with the disk on the bottom. The disk has to be flat on both sides so the cherry won't roll off (so piping small disks which had rounded tops didn't work as well as I hoped). This requires pre-planning to create the disks (they need to set and they require some custom equipement to form) but I've concluded this is essential. Just make sure the disk is on the bottom when depositing the dipped cherry on the paper.
The second problem is avoided by making sure there are no fondant protrusions. This is most reliably done by forming soft fondant around the cherry, but it's time consuming and creates too thick a shell of sugar, over-sweetening the confection. I think the main rule for dipping in melted fondant is to make sure the fondant is thin enough that it wil settle smooth before it sets when depositing the cherry. This is partly a matter of heat (but not over 160 °F or the invertase will be destroyed) and partly a matter of thinning with cherry liquid, which colours and flavours the fondant. I haven't yet tried the shell-molding and starch-molding techniques. I expect they work pretty well, but are more advanced in terms of equipment required, and also both probably result in too much fondant being added.
There are a couple possibilities for the third issue. Chocolate will contract as it cools. If there is too much sugar inside, it might resist that and burst through. For that reason I'm favouring the dipping technique (2a). Even so, I wonder if the chocolate is strong enough. Couverture chocolate is designed to create a thin shell; perhaps it would be better to use a non-couverture that is still high quality, to create a thicker shell. I've tried dipping at a cooler temperature to encourage a thicker shell, but that doesn't seem to help and results in a less smooth shell. It might also work to dip the cherries in chocolate a second time, though that is yet more time invested in this.
Once I can work out the problem of leaks, I think hand dipped cherry cordials are a ne plus ultra of chocolates. The sweetness of the liquid center complements the dark chocolate shell, and the cherry floating in the centre is one of those culinary miracles.
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