For President Jones...

... although I am pretty sure Bonnie will do the actual baking.

Stake Presidential Buried Cherry Cookies

Preheat oven to 350

10 oz. jar maraschino cherries
½ cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sugar
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
1 egg
1 ½ tsp vanilla
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
6-oz package (1 cup) semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup sweetened condensed milk

First, drain cherries, save the juice in jar to use in the fudge topping.

Next, mix butter for 30 seconds, or until light and fluffy. Then add the sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Beat until combined.

Add egg and vanilla. Mix.

Add cocoa powder and flour (mix as much flour in as you can using an electric mixer. You might need to stir the rest in by hand).

Shape the dough into 1 inch balls and place them two inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Make a thumb print in each cookie. Place a cherry in each thumb print.

In a sauce pan, combine chocolate chips and sweet and condensed milk. Melt over low to medium heat. Stir in 4 teaspoons of reserved cherry juice.

Spoon 1 tsp. fudge mixture over the cherry in each cookie.

Bake the cookies at 350 for 8-10 minutes, or just until the edges are set and firm. Cool on the pan for 1 minute, the move to wire racks.

Last, put them on a plate and give them to President Jones.

OPTIONAL STEP TO MAKE THEM LOOK PRETTY: Mix some powdered sugar with a little bit of the extra cherry juice to make a pretty pink glaze. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cookies.

But even with the pretty pink glaze, they still won't be as impressive as President Joneses dessert speciality. Hot dog Jello is hard to beat.