Making Chocolate Covered Cherries With Brandy?

by Darain Schug
(El Paso, IL)

When making chocolate covered cherries with brandy, can brandy be sweetened before soaking cherries?

Last year for Christmas, my wife and I made some chocolate covered cherries to send out to friends and family. They were a hit with everybody, and now people want some more this year!


We made two batches. One batch was regular maraschino cherries. The other batch of cherries were soaked in cherry brandy for about 3 weeks prior to dipping in chocolate.


The regular cherries were nice and sweet, but the brandy-soaked cherries seemed to lose their sweetness. Despite that, the brandied cherries got great reviews.


We used invertase in both batches, and ended up with nice liquid centers. I read a posting here that says invertase isn't necessary in the brandy cherries. Now I know for this year!


My question:
I've still got a big bottle of cherry brandy left to use up. Can I add sugar or corn syrup to the brandy, then soak the cherries in a brandy/sugar mixture? Or, will that mess anything up?


Assuming it's ok, what do you think the ratio would be? For example 1 cup of brandy to 1 cup of sugar? How long should they soak?


I'd like to add the sweetness back in the soaking process, but I don't want to do anything wrong.


I read another recipe where somebody uses Southern Comfort to soak their cherries in, which gives it some sweetness. Maybe that's a better option?


Thanks for the website and the forum to ask questions; this is a great way to learn new things about candy-making.


Any thoughts you have would be appreciated!

Darain Schug
El Paso, IL

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Hi Darain,

I don't personally have any experience making chocolate covered cherries with brandy, but I'm posting the question live so that hopefully someone else can/will answer it for you. :)


I'm kind of surprised that the sweetness of the fondant isn't making the cherries sweet enough, but maybe soaking the cherries in the brandy for 3 weeks was too long?


Homemade chocolate covered cherries are a perfect Christmas gift idea and I can certainly understand why everyone on your list is requesting a repeat performance.


Let's hope you get some good suggestions and they turn out better than ever! Keep us posted.

Blessings,
Angie from chocolate-candy-mall.com