National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day

It's no secret that chocolate-covered cherries are one of our favorite sweet treats. Dark chocolate and cherries are both loaded with good-for-you antioxidants, so put them together and you've got a healthy snack winner, right?

Chocolate covered cherries were introduced to the world by Cella's Confections in New York in 1929 and were an immediate hit, quickly becoming famous the world over. Years later, in 1985, Cella's Confections was bought from the Masarik Family by Tootsie Roll, though the family is still part owners of the product.

Dipped in chocolate, the cherries are coated with a sugary paste containing an enzyme, called invertase. The paste hardens and the cherries are dipped in chocolate. Then they are stored for one to two weeks. During this period the enzyme triggers a chemical reaction in the candy.

Mitscherlich described in 1842 the existence in yeast of a substance capable of inverting dextrorotatory cane sugar into a levorotatory sugar that was identified in 1847 by Dubrunfaut as a mixture of glucose and fructose. In 1860, for the first time, Berthelot carried out the isolation of invertase.