Boeri, the chocolate-covered cherries

Chocolate pairs well with spices, nuts, fresh and candied fruit, creams, mousses and liqueurs, but the combination with cherries is still one of the best. The combination of the "food of the gods" and the small fruit gives life to sin of gluttony to be savoured in a single bite that blends all the ingredients in a whirlwind of aroma, sweetness and warmth.

Italian boeri

Many are the names for these pralines: boeri, apparently invented at the beginning of the 20th century by the Geneva confectioner Emil Gerbeaud, are dark chocolate pralines with a filling of cherry liqueur and pitted cherries in alcohol; in Piedmont, they are also called preferiti ("favourites") or graffioni ("scratched"), since the technique used gives the chocolate casket its typical irregular, scratched appearance, yet it doesn’t always apply to coated candied cherries or sour cherries, liqueur-filled chocolates and other sweet interpretations by master chocolatiers. Tradition dictates that these delicacies are made by hand, and they are often not easy to come by because of their fragility and perishability.