If you search for Valentine’s Day desserts, you’ll likely come up with either chocolate or fruits, and preferably red fruits. With this recipe you have both : dark sweet cherries, buttermilk panna cotta tinted with cherry juice and topped with dark chocolate ganache. The panna cotta is tart-sweet, a nice counterpoint to the sweetness of the ganache. The dark cherries need no added sugar, as they are tender and sweet all by themselves.
As a kid, I cooked so many desserts that my parents readily gave in to my request for parfait glasses. We purchased them at the Pleasants Hardware in our neighborhood (where all things kitchen reigned alongside tools and snow shovels) and I have them still. They have languished in the buffet drawers until now, when the urge to conjure up a comforting memory dessert made me polish them to a shine and fill them with something akin to what my childhood chef prepared for the family.