Amarena/Amarene Cherries

Amarena cherries (Italian: amarene) are small, dark wild cherries preserved in sugar syrup. They are bittersweet rather than simply sweet, with a pronounced almond-like complexity that comes from the stones during preserving - quite different from the synthetic sweetness of cocktail maraschino cherries. Fabbri and Toschi are the benchmark brands. The syrup they are packed in is itself a useful ingredient: it can be marbled into creams, used as a drizzle, or stirred into a mascarpone filling for both colour and flavour. Store an opened jar in the fridge and use within a few weeks.