Pretty pleased...with a cherry on top.

My fridge is empty! I haven't gone grocery shopping in a week, it's quite sad. After a cooking and baking marathon the week before I gave in to my laziness. I spent all of last week sitting on my couch with a stack of library books, a sink full of dirty dishes... and did nothing. My dinners mostly consisted of cheese and crackers or the odd sandwich. I'm slightly ashamed of my behaviour, but sometimes a girl just needs to read. But not to fear, I still have a few delightful recipes that I saved for a rainy day (and it's looking pretty cloudy out there).

This particular recipe comes courtesy of my brothers girlfriend Kristine. When she told me about a recipe for Black Forest Cookies that didn't quite turn out as expected, I was more then happy to help. After all I am never one to turn down a challenge, or a recipe that involves chocolate for that matter. She emailed me the recipe telling me that the main problem with the cookies was that they were dry. And no wonder! There was hardly any wet ingredients, just some softened butter and an egg. I made a few notes on different things I could add and saved the recipe to try out at a later date.

A couple days later I felt the baking itch hit me and knew I needed to make something or go crazy. Now, I like to find as many excuses to bake as humanly possible, and this particular week I had many. Not only did I have a recipe waiting patiently on the sidelines for me to tweak, but I also had some farewell parties to attend and friends to wish bon voyage to. And nothing says it quite like baking. So on a Thursday evening when I was supposed to be at the gym, I was at home surrounded by cherries and chocolate. My first action was to halve the recipe. I decided that making the full amount, which would leave me with 66 cookies, could be hazardous to my health (and waistband). Next I added a generous splash of vanilla and a few spoonfuls of the syrup from my maraschino cherries and it was all that the recipe needed. I ended up with soft, chewy bites of chocolately-cherry goodness, which I packed up in little boxes to give to my friends that were leaving.

Black Forest Cookies
adapted from Company's Coming Cookbook

• 1 cup butter softened
• 1 package instant chocolate pudding powder
• 1 large egg
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp syrup from maraschino cherries
  
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 66 maraschino cherries, drained and blotted dry
  
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 3 tbsp hard butter

Beat first amount of butter in bowl with pudding powder. Add egg, mix well.

Add flour in 2 additions, beating well after each. Roll into 1-inch balls then roll the balls in the sugar (I found the dough to be very sticky and had some trouble forming them into balls, so I scooped them up with my measuring spoon and dropped them into the sugar and molded them into the balls once they were coated.)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Arrange balls about 2 inches apart on a baking sheet. Dent each with thumb. Bake for 5 minutes, press dents again, then return to oven for 10 more minutes until firm. Let stand on cookie sheets for 5 minutes before moving to wire racks to cool. Place one cherry in each dent.

Meanwhile, heat chocolate chips and butter in small heavy saucepan on low heat, stirring often until chocolate is almost melted. Remove from heat and stir until smooth. Spoon into piping bag with small writing tip, or a small re-sealable freezer bag with the corner snipped off. Drizzle small amount of chocolate in decorative pattern over each cookie. Let stand until set.

**Recipe note: the above recipe is for the full 66 cookies, when I halved it I still used the full package of pudding powder and the whole egg**