The cherry port sauce is what really shines. Besides the impressiveness of it being home-made, it really does beat a can of cherry pie filling in terms of richness, without being TOO rich, since it is, after all, topping a cheesecake for crying out loud. Halve your favourite cheesecake recipe to make five ramekins this size and top with ruby beauty.

It all begins with graham cracker crumbs.

After throwing in some sugar and butter, we have the makings of a crust. These ramekins are a very generous size (yours might be more modest) and don’t need to be greased because they’ll be the serving receptacle.

While that’s baking, we get going on the cheese part of this cake.

Make your own dessert sand art!

Onto the cherry topping. This is my favourite part. It’s just sugar, tawny port and two bags of cherries.

Besides making your kitchen smell lovely, if you’re anything like me, you’ll have so much fun admiring the syrup that comes of this.

After your cakes have cooled and your cherries have chilled, you, my friend, have lovely cheesecakes for your efforts. Bravo! A good idea might be to serve with the leftover port, as you’ll have almost an entire bottle left, it’s a dessert wine, and you know for sure it will complement the dessert.

Now go ahead, dig right on in.

For all interested, the recipe can be found here.