Cherry Tea Cakes
Prep Time: 1 hour 10 minutes Start to Finish: 1 hour 40 minutes
Makes: 5 dozen cookies Calories per cookie: 60
Well, January is almost at its end, and that means Valentine's Day is right around the corner. We go from one holiday to the next it seems, so I figured why not test out some love inspired cookie recipes. The first one I'm doing are called Cherry Tea Cakes. These are really easy to make and the cookie itself is a small, bite-sized pop of goodness. They remind me of a buttery, shortbread cookie flavored with almond and little bits of cherry.
You drizzle them with white chocolate to give it that extra sweetness..or leave some without, and have a more savory treat. I love cookies that appeal to my more salty side, and the butter and almond in these cookies just does that.
Ingredients
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 teaspoons maraschino cherry liquid
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
3 or 4 drops red food color
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup drained maraschino cherries, chopped
1/2 cup white vanilla baking chips
Directions
Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, beat powdered sugar, butter, cherry liquid, almond extract and food color with electric mixer on medium speed until blended. On low speed, beat in flour and salt. Stir in cherries.
Shape dough into 1-inch balls. On ungreased cookie sheets, place balls 2 inches apart.
Bake 8-10 minutes or until edges are light gold brown. remove from cookie sheets to cooling racks. Cool 20 to 30 minutes.
In 1-quart resealable freezer plastic bag, place baking chips; seal bag. Microwave on High 35-50 seconds, squeezing chips in bag every 15 seconds, until chips are melted and smooth. Cut small tip from bottom of corner of bag; drizzle melted chips over cookies.
These cookies are so cute and festive. The pink color is perfect for Valentine's Day and the white drizzle makes them look even more decorative. It's always great to have something that looks pretty, but tastes great too! Let me know if you make them and comment below with how they turned out!
<3 P.S.
I'm not gonna lie, I was a little short on maraschino cherries, so I used more like 1/4 cup of cherries instead of 1/2 cup. But the cookies still turned out amazing! I also added a tiny bit of shortening to the white chocolate chips and melted them in a bowl instead of the doing the bag method. This made the chocolate easier to drizzle over the cookies. I just dipped a spoon in the melted chocolate and waved it over the cookies to get the desired effect.