Cherry cookies

I found this recipe for cherry cookies in a Midwest Living magazine two years ago. It raced to the top of my favorites list right away. I love anything with cherries. It scares me to think what someone may throw cherries in just to get me to eat it, but anyway these are very good.

I made these for Julie and Travis' cookie table at their wedding reception. Because we wanted everything to look nice, I used an electronic food scale to weigh the dough and then divided it by 48, which is the number of cookies this recipe will make. Then each gob of dough was weighed individually to make sure all the cookies would look the same size. It was a lot of monkeying, but it worked.

These cookies are small - two or maybe three bites. I've found though that you can easily throw one whole cookie in your mouth quickly in case someone hears you're into the cookie tin again and you want to deny it.

Butter Dreams
1/2 cup butter softened
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
24 maraschino cherries (about half of a 10-oz. jar)

Beat the butter and shortening about 30 seconds with electric mixer. Add sugar and beat until combined. Beat in almond extract and salt; add the flour. Shape dough into 1" balls and place 1" apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Press a thumb into the center of each ball. Drain the cherries and pat dry with paper towels. Cut each cherry in half and place a half (cut side down) in the indentation of each cookie. Bake at 350° 12 to 14 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned. Cool 2 minutes before transferring to wire racks.