As we said with an earlier episode about Presidents’ Day, the story of a young George Washington chopping down a cherry tree may or may not be true. Regardless, Arlene still loved to make all kinds of delicious cherry recipes to celebrate Presidents’ Day!
In this show from 2004, she’s making a super-simple cherry cobbler, otherwise known as the “Minister’s Wife’s Dessert.” She’s also cooking up an easy cherry pie, and some decadent chocolate-covered cherry cookies! We hope you have time to make some of these fun recipes for Presidents’ Day, and we hope you don’t forget to pray for all our elected leaders, all year long.
Cherry Pie Made Easy
This super quick recipe makes an impressive pie in no time!
Ingredients
- 2 pie pastries, unbaked (9 inch, each)
- 1 large can cherry pie filling
- 1/3 tsp almond extract
- 1 Tbsp butter, melted
- Sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- Line a 9-inch pie plate with one of the pastry crusts. Set aside.
- In a bowl mix together cherry pie filling, almond extract and melted butter and blend well. Spoon filling into pie crust. In the second pie crust, cut vent holes in a decorative pattern and place on top of cherries. Seal edges and flute. Sprinkle generously with granulated sugar.
- Place in preheated oven and bake for 35 to 40 minutes until crust is nicely browned. Makes one pie. Enjoy!
Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies
These decadent cookies make a great gift, as long as you don't eat them all first!
Ingredients
Cookies
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1 jar maraschino cherries (10 ounces- containing about 48 cherries)
Icing
- 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- 3 tsp maraschino cherry juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a mixing bowl combine flour and cocoa, set aside. In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed about 30 seconds or until softened. Add sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Beat until well combined. Add egg and vanilla. Beat well. Gradually beat in the flour mixture.
- Shape dough into 1-inch balls; place on ungreased baking sheet. Press down center of each ball with thumb. Drain maraschino cherries, reserving juice. Place a cherry in the center of each cookie.
- In a small saucepan combine chocolate morsels and sweetened condensed milk; heat until chocolate is melted. Stir in teaspoons of the reserved cherry juice. Spoon about 1 teaspoon of frosting over each cherry, spreading to cover cherry. Frosting may be thinned with additional cherry juice, if necessary.
- Bake in preheated oven for about 10 minutes or until done. Remove to wire rack; cool. Cover and store at room temperature up to 2 days. Makes 48 cookies.
Minister’s Wife’s Dessert (Easy Cherry Cobbler)
This dump cake has only 4 ingredients, and it's always a favorite for church potlucks.
Ingredients
- 1 cup canned cherry pie filling
- 1 box yellow or white cake mix
- 1 sticks melted butter (1/2 cup)
- 1/2 cup pecans
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9×9" square cake pan. Spread 1 cup of cherry pie filling over bottom of pan. Sprinkle dry cake mix evenly over cherry filling. Gently pour melted butter all over the dry cake mix, making sure it's all spread out.
- Bake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Allow to cool 15 minutes before serving. It's delicious with whipped cream or ice cream. Enjoy!
Transcript
- Well, hello and welcome to “At Home” today. We’re so glad you dropped in. Today we’re gonna talk about role models and we’re also gonna honor some guys who are really good role models. Some of our presidents. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln. These guys, they were role models. You could tell your kids, “Look what they did with their lives.” It’s a sad state that we live in now where we don’t have those politicians. And not just politicians, others, that normally we would be able to say, “Look up to them.” Sports figures and police and whatever and you can’t do it anymore because corruption seems to have come in every phase of life. And today we’re gonna honor those guys ’cause we’re gonna make cherry recipes today. But let me share these couple of letters with you. The first one says, “I love you and your show, Arlene. While the walls of our land keep falling down, you are my promise that we still have the best. God’s wonderful love.” That’s from Kathleen in Mississippi. You’re right, Kathleen. The other one says, “Hello. I enjoy your program very much. It helps me keep my values about our life and family and love, in spite of a world of confusion.” Think of that, a world of confusion. In spite of all of that, God allows us to help to keep her focused on what’s really important. And I have a little shot of something that’s really important because these are some precious treasures to me. These are my great nieces and nephews who live closeby. They’re as sweet as they can be. These were the cards that were sent out for Christmas and we just love them to death. But you know what? I realize I’m a role model to these kids because my life touches them. Their parents are role models to them. Their teachers are. Let me ask you the question today. Who are you a role model for? You say there’s nobody, young people around me. I’m not a role model. You are a role model to adults as well as children. And you know what? We want to have an effect on their lives. My great nieces and nephews, the people I bump into at the supermarket or wherever, we want to leave a lasting impression for godliness and for good, not for nastiness. So today we’re gonna talk and we’re gonna make some of the favorite cherry recipes of all time. We’ll be back in just a minute, but first here’s today’s “At Home” hint. Here’s today’s “At Home” hint. Aluminum pots discolor when foods containing wine, egg yolks, vinegar, or lemon are cooked in them. It’s always better to use glass or stainless pots and baking dishes. If you’ve got a helpful hint you’d like to share with us, we want to hear from you. Send your hint to At Home Hints, Cornerstone TeleVision, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499. Well, if you’ve just joined us, you’re here right on time because we’re just getting started to make some favorite cherry recipes in honor of our presidents. And we’re gonna make a cherry pie, a cherry dessert, and I’m gonna start with chocolate covered cherry cookies that you put the icing on before you put them in the oven. Oh boy. Okay. To get started, I’ve got about a half a cup of sweetened condensed milk that I put into this little pan ’cause we want that to get warm. That’s gonna be part of the icing. And we’re gonna add about a cup of chocolate chips to that and that’s just gonna stay on low until it melts down. Then we’re gonna add something else, okay? But we’re gonna start to assemble, first of all, in the mixing bowl, we’re gonna add some flour, which is one and a half cups of flour. And I’m just putting it through this little strainer because that kind of takes any lumps and bumps that might be in there. We’re just gonna put it through there real quickly. Okay, that and some cocoa. We have a half a cup of unsweetened cocoa. It’s just cocoa powder. And what you wanna do is just tap this. You say, “Arlene, why do you have those gloves on?” Well, because we’re gonna be rolling dough and I don’t want the dough all over my fingers and fingernails and everything else. So that’s the reason why. And this is just to keep this from… This has all been pre-sifted, anyway. The flour mostly that we use now is pre-sifted, but this just helps it to be a smoother batter, okay? So we’re pushing it through our little mesh here and see we probably aren’t gonna get many problems. These only bake for about 10 minutes, which is nice. Makes about… See what you have in the bottom? That’s what you don’t want to have. That’s why you mash it. And if it doesn’t work, then guess what? You just put it aside like I’m gonna do with this. All right. Now, to this we’re going to put some butter. Let’s see, combine our butter, softened butter. Half cup softened butter. Looks like we have it melted. Guess we’ll have to use it. That should really just be softened and not melted. Okay? And we’re gonna add some salt, a little bit of salt. About a fourth of a teaspoon. Baking powder, baking soda. Both of those in at one time, just like that. And let’s see, and we’re gonna use the mixer and beat this up a little bit. Well, not literally, but we’re going to… Just mix this together. There we go. All right. And then we’re going to add our sugar. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Our egg. One egg and some vanilla, which is about one teaspoon. Just like that. And again, I stress, use the good vanilla, okay. Don’t buy the imitation. We’re gonna mix that up. Beat this well. Okay. Now we’re going to combine our dry… Actually I’m gonna put the egg in with our flour and our cocoa because I like the bigger bowl. We’re just gonna drop that in there. Let me get a spatula here. Scrape out all the goodies. You know, since I was a little kid, I remember the stories of the presidents and what godly men they were and how there was prayer in the White House and how they did so much for our country because they were not afraid to take a stand and keep standing when everybody else was in opposition to them. And that’s something that you don’t find. Now everybody’s looking for the popular vote or the one that says, “Oh, I’ll do this for you or I’ll do that.” But I’m just thankful that there are those still who say, they’re few and far between, but there are godly people who will indeed stand for what’s right in righteousness and holiness. And as I said in the open, we are all, really and truly we are all part of examples to somebody. I don’t care who it is, we’re examples to somebody. Okay, we’re gonna mix this around like so ’til a batter forms. And then as the batter forms, we’re gonna shape this into one inch balls of batter. It will hold its shape. Okay. And let me take a check over here. Let’s take a look and see what’s going on in this little pan over here because we gotta add something else to that. Make sure I have everything in here. I need to add my cup of sugar. I think I missed my cup of sugar. So I’m gonna add it now to the batter. Okay. Hold on. You know, we’re a little discombobulated today because we have a blizzard going on today and most everybody’s leaving to go home, but we’re staying here so that you can have these programs. We’re working at it and I appreciate the crew doing that. But we’re gonna mix this together. There we go. It’ll blend in. People say, “Oh, if I don’t do it perfect….” Well guess what? This is the way you find out a new way to do things because you try it… because maybe you forgot to add an ingredient or whatever. Now let’s take a look over here. We have in this pan, some sweetened condensed milk and our chocolate chips. Look how nice that’s melting down. Beautiful. But that’s not enough. That’s gonna be our icing. That’s not quite enough yet. Let me show you what else we’re gonna add into that. We’ve taken a jar of maraschino cherries and we’ve drained them and now I’m gonna add about four… Make sure I get it right. Four teaspoons… Here we go. Four teaspoons of the cherry juice right to our icing. 1, 2, 3, 4. And what that will do is add such a dimension of flavor. It’s gonna be great. We’re gonna mix that around. So you have the chocolate flavor with the taste of cherries included in it. Just like that. Okay. Looks wonderful. Now if this gets too thick, you can also just reserve the cherry juice because this is what you’ll use to thin this out. Okay. Look, that’s beautiful. All right, I’m gonna take that off. And now I’m gonna roll couple of these, just like this. Okay. And when you get them rolled, you’re gonna make them into one inch balls, like I said, and put them on a cookie sheet. Don’t have to spray it or grease it or anything. But just make it round. And you’re gonna push your thumb in the middle like that. Then you’re gonna add one of these beautiful, big cherries right in the middle. And then you’re gonna take some of this wonderful icing and you’re gonna cover that cherry with the icing and then you’re gonna bake it. Look at this. Does that look awesome? Oh my. Delicious, delicious. You put them in a 350 degree oven, bake them 10 minutes. You don’t even have to ice them when you bring them out. The cookie’s done. We’re gonna take a break. When we come back, more of our special program honoring our presidents and cherries. We’ll be right back. All right. Welcome back to our special edition of “At Home” because we’re honoring the presidents by making cherry dishes today. We have our cookies in the oven baking. Chocolate covered cherry cookies. Oh, you’ll love them. Second one we’re gonna do, and this was sent in by a friend of our program. She said, “Every time I make this and I take it to a covered dish, the people always eat it all up and then they ask for the recipe and it has four ingredients.” This is the kind of stuff I like. Okay. You take a nine by nine or an eight by eight pan. And she doesn’t say to, but we’re just gonna spray it lightly with just some plain old Pam or some kind of a butter because we don’t want it to stick. Okay? Now you take one cup of cherries. This is the canned cherry, like the pie filling. One cup only, don’t use the whole thing. Just one cup. Okay. And we’re gonna put that in the bottom of this pan. Now I’m sure you could use other kinds, but since we’re doing cherries today we just thought this would be appropriate. And she said to spread the cherries over the bottom of the pan. Just like that. Try to do it evenly and try to get more cherries than the syrupy stuff because that’s just thickening of the juice, but you really want lots of cherries. Okay. So we spread that evenly. Now the next thing that we’re going to do is sprinkle… Just take a plain cake mix that you get in a box, just like this, and it’s a yellow or a white cake mix. And you’re going to sprinkle this, believe it or not, over the cherries. You don’t mix it, you don’t make the cake mix. We’re just gonna sprinkle this all over top of the cherries. See, I like it already ’cause it’s so simple. So easy. No hassle. You think you could do this, Mike?
- [Mike] Absolutely.
- Mike can do this. We’re teaching all the crew how they can cook and help their families and you know. Yeah right. We’re teaching them so that they can survive and eat themselves when the wife’s busy or she’s working or something. We have to make it look good and sound good for them though, ’cause they get testy. But anyway. Pretty soon Mike’s gonna be an accomplished cook and he’ll be having his own show on another network somewhere probably. Anyway, we love all the guys that’s on the crew. Here we go. Now we’ve got the whole cake mix in, dry cake mix. Now we’re gonna pour one half cup, which is one stick, of melted butter right over the top. And try to do it evenly, just like that. Now you have to know that when this butter gets heated and it cooks down into that wonderful… That wonderful, wonderful cake mix, it’s gonna get crunchy. You have to know it’s gonna get crunchy. Okay? Now next thing to.. What could you put on here that would make it even better? Right. Pecans. And you just sprinkle a half a cup of pecans over top and they also roast in the oven while this is baking, of course. And it’s so awesome because they get toasted. Nothing better. You know, nuts taste fine when they come out of the bag or you get ’em fresh off the tree or whatever, but there’s nothing as tasty and delicious as when you make them and you put them in the oven and even on a plain cookie sheet, maybe just spray them with some butter or some melted butter over them. Oh my goodness. This goes into a preheated 350 degree oven, which we happen to have ours set at right here. And it’s gonna go for about one hour. There you go. One hour. When that comes out, you have the most delicious… And this is called the minister’s wife’s dessert. I think that’s a pretty unusual name for it but it certainly meets the criteria. Remember my mother, boy, they were always looking for her desserts because she would try to make something special when there was anything going on special with the church. All right. The last one I promised you is a pie. And I wanna show you how to make a pie. Very simple, very easy, and no intimidation. You say pie to people and immediately they’re in a panic. Oh, I can’t make crust. I can’t do this. You can get refrigerated crusts. Remember, I tell you use them. You don’t have to impress anybody with, “Oh, I can make a good crust.” If you can, that’s great. But if you can’t, don’t let that stop you from trying to do something like a pie. Okay. In this, let’s see, we’re gonna take this bowl. Little cherry juice in the bottom of that but I’m just gonna wipe that out. And I’m gonna take one can of… Let me see, I’ll use this spatula. One can of… Now this says large can of cherries. There’s this size, which is about 20 ounces, but there’s also the big one, like I call it the sauerkraut can size, a big one. And we had some leftover from our minister’s wife’s dessert ’cause it only calls for a cup. So we’re putting it all in this pie to make it really nice and fruity. ‘Cause we like it, we like lots of fruit in our pies. Okay. So we don’t just take it outta the can and place it in there. We’re gonna doctor up those cherries with a little flavoring and that’s what makes something taste homemade when you’re making homemade things. That’s what makes it taste homemade when you doctor it up and give it a little fresh flavor. And that’s gonna be a little bit of melted butter, pouring that right in there and also some almond extract. Almond is, I tell you what, it’s one of the best. And you only want a little bit, like maybe a fourth of a teaspoon. You don’t want a lot ’cause a little bit of this goes a long way. This is strong. This is extract. All right. Now, let’s see. Make sure we have everything. Melted butter, we have our almond extract, and now we’re gonna pour this one right into our pie crust. And there it goes. Isn’t that pretty? I’m glad that it was a cherry tree that got chopped down. Because you know what? I really like cherries and I think it’s just so colorful and beautiful and tasty and most kids like cherries. Look how nice and full that makes your pie. Very nice. Okay. Now we’re gonna take our other crust, just like this. And this comes in this refrigerated… You know, I told you it’s so easy to do. And you wanna make a decorative top to that. You also need that for air vents. First of all, I always cut one in the middle, in the center, and then if I’m in a hurry, I just make some slits like so. These are called vents so it doesn’t cook all over your stove. Let’s the steam come out. Okay. And I’m gonna open it up. We’re gonna put this on top of that pie. Flute the edges. I have one going in the oven for us so you can see it. It’s a beautiful pie. And when we come back, we’re gonna be at the dining room table and I’m gonna show you all the things we made today in honor of our presidents. We’ll be right back. We’re honoring our presidents because they were men of good report. They have good reputations. Not all of them, but the ones that are, that’s the ones we honor today.
- [Mike] Amen.
- And our cherry desserts, here’s the minister’s wife’s dessert. This is awesome. Look at the layers. Look at the cherries, the nuts. And the only other thing that I would add to that would be just a dollop of whipped cream on top. Oh boy. That is a wonderful, easy to do. And don’t double the recipe if you need a big one. Make two separate, that’s what the lady said. Okay? Then we have our cherry pie and of course you know, either a big glass of milk or ice cream goes with cherry pie. So today, while it’s still warm, there’s the cherry pie. Aw, look at that. Flaky crust. Yum, yum, delicious cherries. And then here’s our chocolate covered cherry cookies. These are so awesome. Now remember we put that icing on them before they went in the oven. So when we brought them out, that’s the way they look when they come out. You don’t do another thing with them. And these will stay fresh for a couple of days. You also can freeze them, but you have to package them really, really well. Inside there remember is a whole cherry. In that little groove that you made in the cookies. Just some really interesting, delicious, easy-to-do cherry recipes for you. And again, I hope you’ll give some thought to what we talked about earlier about mentoring. You’re a role model for a lot of people. Like my nieces and nephews I showed you earlier. They are so precious and they’re treasures. There’s Reno and Rihanna, there’s Josh and Jake, and there’s Corey and Hailey. Those are six little treasures in my life and I wanna be a good role model to them and I hope you do. The best role model in the world is the Lord God almighty, because he never makes a mistake. Till we see you the next time, be sure to join us because it just wouldn’t be the same without you here at home. We’ll see you then.
- [Narrator] Furnishings provided by Levin Furniture, featuring Lane’s Country Living Collection. Food provided by Jordan Banana Company, wholesalers of fresh food and vegetables, in Dravosburg, Pennsylvania. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.
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