Roasted Cherries with Strained Yogurt

Place a fine mesh sieve on top of a bowl. The sieve should not touch the bottom of the bowl—there should be some space left in between. Place a very clean kitchen towel or cheesecloth on the sieve and pour yogurt in. Gather the ends of the kitchen towel and cover the yogurt. Place the bowl with the sieve in the fridge and leave it there for at least 5–6 hours or, ideally, overnight. You can throw away the strained liquid once while straining, so that it doesn’t touch the yogurt in the sieve.

When ready to serve, transfer strained yogurt into a clean bowl. Add 2 tablespoons brown sugar and vanilla extract to taste. Stir well and let sit until brown sugar dissolves into the yogurt. (The brown sugar that I use is quite rough and it takes a while for it to dissolve into the yogurt. By waiting a bit, you avoid adding too much sugar. Don’t forget that the cherries are sweet as well, so don’t overdo it with the sugar.)

Preheat oven to 200ºC (390ºF).

Place halved cherries into a roasting tray. Add remaining 4 tablespoons sugar and mix gently, distributing the fruit evenly on the tray. Add the split vanilla bean, cinnamon stick, star anise and cardamom seeds. Let fruit marinate for about 10 minutes.

Mix orange juice and elderflower syrup. If you don’t have any elderflower syrup, you can omit it or replace it with some other syrup. I can imagine that caramel syrup would be good in this combination as well. Pour over the cherries and mix well.

Place the tray in the oven and bake for about 15 minutes. Stir well, distribute the fruit evenly again and continue baking for another 15 minutes.

Serve hot on cold on top of the strained yogurt.