Cherry Ripe Cups

I have two packets of red Glace Cherries in the pantry, earmarked for a higher purpose in this life.  I like Cherry Ripes, but my line in the sand recipe wise for Slices is crossed if I have to purchase bars of confectionery to chop up and add to the mix.  I'll do it for chocolate balls, I'll do it for a topping on my cupcakes, but it isn't an ingredient that makes up a slice.  Well, not a slice I can afford to cook on a regular basis anyway.  Enter, the Cherry Ripe Slice.  Despite the fiddly nature of doing slices in miniature, I gave it a go, and the results are none too shabby at all:-

Our recipe today

Cherry Ripe Cups
Makes approx 55 mini cups
Ingredients
Base
80g Butter, melted
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
3/4 Cup Plain Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
Filling
3 Cups Dessicated Coconut
1 tin Sweetened Condensed Milk
2 Eggs, lightly beaten
200g red Glace Cherries
1 teaspoon Red Food Colour
Topping
400g Chocolate, melted

Take your brown sugar and melted butter and combine together in a bowl.

Add the plain flour and baking powder, working the mixture until all ingredients are combined evenly

Take small amounts of the dough, and work them into the bottoms of your silicone mini muffin moulds to make the base layer.

Bake in the oven at 170 degrees for approximately 12 minutes, or until a nice light golden brown colour

Leave to cool and start on the filling.  I used my own home made condensed milk for this yet again, so left the whisk attachment on after making it, then added the coconut and lightly beaten egg and mixed it gently until just combined.

Chop the Glace Cherries, or you can be lazy like me and use a Food Processor

Considering how bad I am using knives, this is probably the smartest thing I've done all day!

Add your cherries to the mixture, the red food colouring and mix, mix, mix with a large spoon until you have a consistent, even colour right through.

Next, teaspoon full at a time, fill each cup and level off as best you can.  This is a pretty sticky mixture to work with, and, clean dry hands or a plastic spoon have been the best utensils for this part of the job in my attempts thus far.  You don't want to fill the cups too much, just slightly over 3/4 full is about where I try to aim for.

Pop these back in the oven for a further 12 minutes, or until slightly browning at the outermost edges.  Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes.

Melt the chocolate, 50g-100g at a time (I opted for the microwave for melting this time and used a nice belgian milk chocolate block I picked up on special) and spoon onto the top of the cases.  I find a teaspoon full is roughly enough, give or take, so start out with this amount on each cup.

Spread completely to the edges, filling in any gaps, and gently drop a few times onto the tray to settle the chocolate evenly on the top.

Refrigerate for at least an hour or more before peeling from the cups and enjoying immensely!

I am hoping my blog updating will be a less painful procedure in the future.  Tonight, I just realised I am uploading massive sized files straight from the camera, ensuring every blog entry with photos takes upwards of 2 hours to complete.  From here on in, I can assure you I will convert the files to JPEG before uploading in future!!  Seriously, some were 3MB each - eeek!