White - Chocolate Cherry Shortbread

These cookies are great if you want to try something different for Christmas or add some color to the Christmas meal.

The ingredients include half a cup of sugar, half a teaspoon of almond extract, one cup of cold butter, half a cup of maraschino drained and finely chopped cherries, two teaspoons shortening, twelve ounces of white chocolate baking squares, and two cups of all-purpose flour. If you want, you may add two drops of red food coloring or red edible glitter.

Drain the cherries on paper towels while preheating the oven to 325 degrees F. Combine the flour and sugar in a large bowl then cut in the butter with a pastry blender until you obtain fine crumbs. The next step is to stir in drained cherries along with four ounces of the chopped chocolate. If you wish, you may add the food coloring. Knead the composition until it looks like a smooth ball.

Shape the dough into 3/4-inch balls. Take an ungreased cookie sheet and put two inches balls apart. Now flatten the balls to one inch rounds using the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar. Put them in the oven for up to twelve minutes, cool for one minute, and transfer the cookies to a wire rack.

Mix eight ounces of white chocolate with the shortening in a small saucepan then stir over low heat until melted. Once the cookies are cool, dip half of each of them into chocolate but allow the excess to drip off. Optionally, you may roll the edges into nonpareils or edible glitter. Place them on waxed paper and when the chocolate is set, store them at the room temperature, covered.

White-chocolate cherry shortbreads have eighty-seven calories per serving, five grams of fat, nine milligrams of cholesterol, no fibers, and one gram of protein. The values are base on a 2,000 calorie diet.