In a mixing bowl, blend the shortening and the corn syrup.
Add the powdered sugar and beat until smooth.
Add some cherry juice as needed to make a soft dough.
You want this fondant to be pretty soft, but not liquid or sticky.
Chill fondant in the refrigerator for an hour.
Making the Cherry Centers
Drain the cherries, and set on paper towels.
Pull off a blob of fondant, about the size of a big gumball. Flatten it out in your hands into a disk and wrap the cherry in it. Don’t worry if it isn’t perfect in shape, you can fix that later. If your fondant is really soft, you’ll have great cordials later, but it can be hard to wrap the cherries, don’t despair.
Place on waxed paper. Once all the cherries are done, place in the freezer for a few hours, or a few weeks.
If your cherries are kinda funny looking after freezing, just remove them, roll around in your hands to reshape and freeze again.
Dipping
Melt the chocolate chips and shortening in the microwave slowly, add more shortening if the chocolate seems too thick to dip.
You’ve got a few options as far as how to dip. For cherries with the stem you can just use the stem as your dipper. Without the stems, you can use two plastic forks with the middle tines broken out as your dipping tools.
Allow to dry on waxed paper. You may need to go back and patch any holes with melted chocolate.
Let these guys sit for a week or so to let the centers liquefy a bit. I found this cool stuff, invertase, at sugarcraft.com. It’s an enzyme that breaks down solid sugar to liquid sugar, I add about 1/2 teaspoon to the fondant and the centers become nice and liquidy after a few days.
