Valentine’s cherry tiramisu.

Black cherry tiramisu.

It’s Valentine’s Day and I thought it would be a great excuse to write up this great tiramisu recipe which you can make with Allesverloren Fine Old Vintage, which used to be an excellent Port, and is now and excellent Old Vintage, thanks to the pen pushers in Brussels.

Serves 2

300g black cherries

100ml Allesverloren Fine Old Vintage

70g caster sugar

2 egg yolks

120g mascarpone

80ml cream

12 sponge fingers

6 Amaretti biscuits, crushed

Lindt dark chocolate, grated, to decorate

Stone the cherries and chop them roughly.

Put them into a saucepan with the Allesverloren and half the sugar. When the sugar has melted, cool down and strain the syrupy mix and place it to one side.

Beat the eggs with the rest of the sugar until frothy.

Add the mascarpone and whisk.

Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks, then fold it in.

You can then give this a good whisk to firm it up until it becomes quite stiff. It needs to be able to support the cherries.

Get two wine glasses and dip your sponge fingers briefly into the Allesverloren syrup.

Layer these in the glasses, then top with a thin layer of cherries, the cream, then a sprinkle of Amaretti biscuits, then another layer of soaked sponge fingers. Keep going until you’ve used up all the ingredients.

It looks nice finishing up with the cream mixture, though. Grate some dark chocolate on top and a few cherries to garnish. Chill for about four hours and then dig in.

Pair with a glass of Fleur du Cap Late Noble Harvest.